Forever and a Day
by Catheryne
Summary: Blair/Chuck. Historical. Her one desire was for a place with the queen. His one mission was to win her heart. And they would do everything they can to win their hearts' desires, even brave the intrigue, danger and scandal in Elizabeth's court.
1. Prologue

**Forever and a Day**

**AN: **So I can choose to write their dialogue in the Queen's English, and have us all muddle through interpreting the language of Shakespeare. But I love myself too much to make my nose bleed. And so, I will be free with the language and you might notice that the voice I use suits more 19th and 18th century English than 16th.

As for the history, Blair and Chuck will interact with GG characters as well as true people from history, presented as fairly and accurately as I can manage. I am planning for some deviations, in Essex's timeline, the real titles and backgrounds of the characters (though I made sure that no one held the title at the time this story is happening). We will follow the places and the events and do some minor tweaking. Right now, I am invoking my literary license to work with Blair and Chuck's story.

**Prologue**

She waited as Dorota ran the fine-toothed comb down her long hair. She tapped her fingers on her thigh as Dorota threaded strands of pearl into her hair, and fidgeted in her seat and the maid twined her locks into a braid. Once done, Dorota held to her a hand mirror so she could take a look at her appearance.

Blair smiled, pleased, and patted the sides of her head. "Perfection," she pronounced. "Oh Dorota, style my hair so when I am finally presented to the queen!" Blair clapped her hands in delight. "And of course, I must soon commission fine gowns, and robes. I will fit into the court like a hand-stitched glove."

Dorota was proud of her creation, yet did not show it. Instead, the maid stood as her voice of reason and reminded her, "Many vie for a post with the queen, my lady."

"It is a post with the queen, after all," Blair said. "I vow there must be a hundred girls lining up for an audience with her royal highness."

"Aye. And she may well choose any one of those hundreds."

Blair pouted and looked at her maid. "But I am Blair Waldorf!" She huffed. "My ancestors fought with Henry VII, and served as advisors to the queen's father. My grandparents supported Henry's marriage to the queen's mother herself, and died in Mary's bloodbath!" Dorota, upon realizing her error, consoled her with a hand on Blair's shoulder. "Surely I, more than any other, deserve a place in the queen's service!" she finished on a high pitch.

"You're right, you're right," Dorota said in an effort to pacify her. "Forgive an old woman who knows nothing of aristocracy."

"Exactly," Blair snapped. "You do not know the ways of my world, Dorota. Hush your mouth instead of crushing my only dream."

The maid nodded. "Do you want me to take the pearls out now, my lady? You need to face your visitors in the hall."

Blair held up the mirror herself and drank in the wonderful sight of her mother's pearls threaded into her hair. "I suppose you should," she agreed. In the far reaches of her home she doubted there would be anyone who would call her out on her appearance, but the queen's sumptuary laws were all encompassing. She could not dare break them, not even in the privacy of her own family estate, lest word reached the queen and she never was considered for a place because of one night of vanity. Dorota took the pearls out of her braids. No, this was too important. She had desired this since she was child. "I wish Nathaniel never comes for me."

"Why would you desire such a fate, my lady? There is no future more unbearable and terrible to a woman than a childless one."

Blair gives her maid a secret smile. "Why, who ever said a woman needs a husband to have a child, Dorota?" Her voice dropped, and then she leaned closer to share her secret so juicy and delectable. Her secret would make Dorota's ears burn. Truly it would! Why, if her mother were with her she was sure to scrub her tongue clean for daring to utter such scandalous news. "I hear tell of a lady from Warwick manor, who has been locked up in her chambers for bearing a son while yet unmarried. The lord and the lady of the house were enraged, Dorota," Blair shared. Dorota's brows furrowed and she looked down at the floor instead of her eyes. "I knew it! Blair exclaimed. "You knew of this news before I ever did. Dorota, why hide such titillating story from your charge?"

Dorota waved her hands before her. "I cannot repeat such news, my lady—especially not to your dainty ears. It was a scandal. Truly. Lady Cecily would that the news never reached anyone else."

Blair slid forward and grasped her maid's hand. "But is it true? Did Lady Lilian bear a son unmarried?"

"She did," Dorota admitted forlornly.

Blair eyes sparkled with her interest. If it were truly possible, and her parents were not there to oppose it, then it could be the very future for her.

"Please, Lady Blair, do not think it."

Her lips curved. "Take heart, Dorota. I would do nothing that could come in the way of my service to Gloriana." Blair clasped her hands on her lap. "Very soon, I will be one of the queen's ladies—the very best of them all."

"And then you will marry the good man that Lord Harold and Lady Eleanor had chosen for you," Dorota reminded her. "Certainly, my lady, your dream of Elizabeth's court does not cause you to forget the very dream your parents had for you. They chose a fine man for you."

Blair reached up and plucked a lock of hair from each side of the braid and allowed them to fall freely at the sides of her face to soften the look. "My queen rules England with a mighty hand, and she does not need a consort," Blair pointed out.

"The queen does not have a betrothed as fine as yours, my lady."

Blair rolled her eyes, then stood. "If Nathaniel never comes for his bride, I will be happy. Then off I will go to court and have a fine time of it!" She stood and looked at her muted green gown. "I would wear purple yet," she muttered. "I would look wonderful in purple. Do you not think so, Dorota?"

Dorota bit her lower lip. Blair raised her chin proudly as she walked out of her chambers to meet the visitors that had been announced earlier in the day. Dorota hesitated and thought too much of the implications of her answers. Someday she would wear purple without fear, because she would have every right to do so.

"Remember, my lady. Your mother has always cautioned you about your thoughts."

Blair looked back at the maid following closely behind her. "That they would be my downfall?"

"Tempered clothing, a tempered mind, a tempered passion," Dorota recited for her charge's benefit.

Blair shrugged her shoulders. "Have you ever heard of anything more self-conflicting than those, Dorota?" Her parents had been, like many of her family since Henry's time, Protestants. And they tended to lean more Purist than even their monarchs. Blair disliked the thought of always being in somber clothes and moods. "It is a prison!" she exclaimed. She had heard about prisons despite never having seen one herself. "What is a tempered passion? It refutes itself," she pointed out. Instead she liked Elizabeth's reformist style. The queen, from all stories told, was colorful in mind and manner, and could cuss out more than even her father Henry. "Believe me, Dorota. I would have the right to wear my gold and silks and pearls when I am in court."

Blair picked up the skirt of her gown, and heard Dorota's exclamation when her action caused her petticoats to peek through from underneath the hem. She hurried out to the hall where Dorota had told her the visitors waited.

Of course it would be her father. It was her father and his good friend Sir Roman, come back from the Netherlands with a surprise. Perhaps a nice little pet she had wanted since she had spied the little baby hedgehog that was owned by her cousin.

But there was no pet, no father, nor a father's friend. Instead there was only a small group of strangers in their stark black doublets and austere hats. Their shoes were dusty from their travel, and Blair found displeasure stirring low in her belly. "Are you in such hurry then, that you choose not to freshen up from your travel before sending for me?" was her first demand.

The man at the forefront of the group stepped towards her and murmured his apologies, then held out a rolled parchment on his palm. Blair looked down at the scroll, then reached for it with hesitation. The man cleared his throat, then offered in a low voice, "Do you wish for me to read it for you, my lady?"

She huffed, then plucked the scroll from his hand. Blair unrolled it and she narrowed her eyes at the script. She squinted, then tried to sound out what letters they were that she recognized. The man in front of her watched closely, and she chafed under his scrutiny. Finally, she cursed, "God's blood! Could the writer not have had the supreme grace to write in a more legible hand?" And then, almost as if it was a challenge, she held out the scroll to him. "See if you can make sense of this hand, master."

The man reached for the scroll, then said as he looked down at the parchment. "You are most certainly right, my lady. The scrawl is illegible at best." He ran his eyes quickly through the document and rolled it up once more. Her heart soared at the simple gesture of grace from the commoner. "Fortunately, I was told of the contents of the missive, and I can relay to you the message of Lord Vanderbilt."

"Vanderbilt," she repeated with a sinking heart.

"You are requested to travel at once to the castle. It is time for you and your betrothed to wed, my lady."

"Nathaniel Archibald cannot be bothered to ride into my keep and fetch me for himself?" Blair inquired. "He sends one of his men."

And the reader bowed to her. "It was my pleasure, Lady Blair."

"Is it, sir?"

"Daniel Humphrey, my lady."

Even in her great offense, so she traveled. It was one of those, she told Dorota as her maid helped full her trunk with the dresses she so adored. She had always known she was to marry Nathaniel. Perhaps her adventure would soon begin after all. The Vanderbilts were notorious for their summers and winters with the court.

Yet dreams of the luxuries and the spectacles of court faded by hour as the journey to Nathaniel drew longer and longer. Almost by the journey's end, Blair spied a tempting brook that dipped into a pond. It was night and Daniel Humphrey informed him that they would be in the castle by daybreak. She had caught a glimpse of herself in the sand mirror that Humphrey used to scrub his chin free of his the tiny shadow of his beard that covered the lower half of his face.

Her fiance's first look at her should not be one of a gravelly, dusty mess. Blair crawled out of the makeshift camp and spotted a smooth stone by the water. She placed her drying cloth and a change of apparel on the rock.

She looked around and was grateful that the traveling party was a good distance away. Blair shed her riding gown and stood out in the cold air only in her linen shift. She tested the water with her foot, found the pleasant warmth of the pool. Encouraged, she walked into the water. The farther she went, the higher it climbed around her. Her shift stuck to her body like a second skin, and every time she rose the breeze blew cold. The hairs on her arms rose to attention. She dipped her full length, up to her chin, in the water. Her breathing slowed and ripples radiated from her out onto the smooth surface of the water. The moon's reflection danced upon it. Blair grew rapidly fascinated by the reflection of the light and the shadows of the trees as they played upon the pond.

Blair heard the neigh of the horse. There was the sound of a broken twig that drew near, and finally the scuffle of boots by the grass. Her eyes grew large as she waited for the new arrival to emerge. Blair saw the shadow from the other end of the pool. She took a deep breath and lowered herself more into the water.

The man shamelessly shed his clothes, and Blair turned around to find a place to hide. The smooth rock at the center would do well as a shelter. She made her way there and peered out, found him completely naked as a silhouette standing at the edge of the pool. She gasped. It caught his attention, because he straightened and glanced at her direction.

Blair slapped a hand over her mouth and hid behind her rock, then pressed her back against the hard surface. She heard the splash that he created as he entered the water. She closed her eyes and kept quiet, although she would not blame herself if a mewling sound would escape her throat.

Moments later it was silent. She released a breath of relief, then silently crept around her large rock. Blair looked over her left shoulder as she tiptoed to the right.

He must have gone.

Another step, then another. And then she bumped into something warm and wet. She slowly turned her head and looked up wide-eyed at the presence before her. His eyes widened like hers. Blair blinked up at him.

"Are you some fey water creature?" he breathed into the night air.

Blair swallowed, painfully aware that his hands had settled onto her hips, where only thin, wet, linen served as barrier between their skin. She felt his fingers curl and dig deliciously into her flesh. "You've no clothes on. Mayhap you are faerie." In truth, he was every bit as beautiful as the dangerous creatures in the books that her father brought for her to study reading. In Elizabeth's court she would be sure to learn to read, and she would know more about these creatures like the one before her. "Have you come to lure me to my death?"

His eyes crinkled with pleasure at her words. "If you are no fey creature, then who are you?"

"I've come for a bath, is all," she answered. Her fingers lifted, and with shameless curiosity she touched the glistening skin of his chest. The moment she touched him, he sucked in his breath. Blair's lips parted. He cocked his head to the side, and he regarded her with marvel in his gaze. Blair met his eyes. Her gaze then fell to his lips. She fidgeted under the water, which had once been warm but now had become rather hot. She drew back her hand. "Forgive me."

"For what?" he whispered.

"For being too bold."

"I enjoy boldness in a woman," he told her. She flushed, because she had not been called a woman before. She was a girl, a girl of sixteen. "And now, with roses on your cheeks you are enticing like a fruit."

She did not move to leave, yet she said to him, "I must depart."

"Let me take you where you will. There are thieves about." And neither did he move to take his hands off her hips.

"They cannot hurt me," she assured him. Surely any scuffle, or a small cry, and Daniel Humphrey and his party would charge to her rescue.

He leaned down, and their lips were a mere breath apart. She felt the warmth of his exhale against her face. "If you are no faerie, then you must be a goddess to be so certain you can bring such vile men to heel."

She caught her breath, almost in a soft sob, when he laid his lips on hers. Blair closed her eyes and almost wept for the strange, new, overwhelming feeling that wrapped around her like an ermine cloth, that threaded through her limbs like spun silk. She heard the sound of her murmured groan from the depths of her throat.

Oh Heaven.

She had not thought this feeling existed. His lips teased her mouth open, and he nipped kisses on her lower lips. Blair's eyes closed and she shamed herself for weeping. His hands lifted from her hips, then settled on her cheeks as he patiently placed kisses on the edges of her lips.

When he looked down at her, she met his eyes and wiped at her tears. She backed away from him, aware of the heavy shift that now stuck around her and showed her form.

"Wait," he said. "Tell me your name."

She shook her head. When she reached the edge she climbed up and took her clothes from the dry rock. She flung the drying cloth around her and stumbled back to the camp. Blair settled down on the grass beside her maid. She stared out into the fire, then touched the corner of her lips.

"My lady?" she heard Dorota asked as she drew herself up. "My lady, you will catch your death of cold." Blair blinked, then allowed Dorota to dry her hair with the cloth.

And then, Dorota pulled her towards the trees to help her out of her soaked shift and into a new one. Dorota clucked her tongue. "Where have you been, my lady?"

"Oh Dorota!" she exclaimed. Blair grabbed her maid's hands and clutched them tightly. "I have committed a marvelous sin."

"What sin, my lady?"

Her fingers touched her lips once more. "I kissed a man," she shared.

Dorota raised both hands to hush her lady. Blair nodded in understanding. Dorota only ever had her good in mind, more than her mother who had long since gone back to her family in France. Her father was still away in the Netherlands on his interminable mission for the queen. But Harold had wanted this marriage to Nathaniel Archibald, and he could not disappoint such a loving man.

Blair managed to doze for a little while, and even in her sleep she did not escape the dark eyes of her faerie man. And so when Daniel Humphrey woke the party to make the last distance to the Vanderbilt castle, Blair bulled herself reluctantly from the bed. She turned to Dorota, who offered her the blinding diamond ring that she was supposed to wear. Blair slid on the token of her betrothal.

True enough, Nathaniel and Lord Vanderbilt both appeared pleased at the sight of the family heirloom sitting on her fingers upon her arrival.

"We are pleased you found your way safely to your family," Lord Vanderbilt told her.

Blair nodded and smiled. "I am pleased that my guide was so dedicated to my safety."

Daniel Humphrey looked up at her in surprise, then tipped his hat in gratitude for her words. Nathaniel offered her his gloved hand, and she placed on it her own gloved hand. "Let me introduce you to my good friend, who only just arrived shortly before your party." Nathaniel drew her towards a man in a dark red leather doublet. "My lady, this is my friend Warwick. Bass," he said. "Chuck Bass," he repeated.

Slowly, the dark head turned. Blair held her breath when she recognized him. Chuck Bass' eyes widened at the sight of her. He recovered quickly, the sign of a true courtier. He took her gloved hand in his, then turned it over to reveal the open part of the leather, that showed off her pulsepoint? He placed a kiss on her wrist, then looked up at her from beneath thick, dark lashes. "A pleasure."

Blair slowly released her breath lest she become even more lightheaded. "Certainly, Lord Warwick," she said unsteadily.

"Such a faerie creature can most certainly call me by my name. Chuck. Say it," he urged.

And so she did. "Chuck," fell from her tongue so easily.

"Tell me your name," he suggested now, just as he did only the night before when they were near naked under the moonlight.

"This is Lady Blair," Nathaniel answered for her.

And Chuck said, "Blair."

Nathaniel waved to the woman she did not know, and he excused himself. "Forgive me, Lady Blair. The preparations for tonight's festivities are underway, and I am called."

"Of course," she said, flustered at the sensation of Chuck Bass' thumb drawing circles on her bare wrist. To keep him from doing so she covered his hand with hers.

"Let me take you to your chambers. I believe I know the way to your bed even with my eyes closed," he said to her, and Blair sucked in her breath at the implication.

When Nate walked a little ways away, she turned to Chuck Bass and said, "Say nothing of the pool." And she took as brisk steps as he did on their way to the bedchambers.

"You were not wearing the diamond. I would have known if you were."

"I was taking a bath," she defended. "It was a moment of lapse."

"Is this another lapse?" And then, taking pleasure in the name, he said, "Blair?"

Her eyes fell to where he looked, and found her hand still clutching his.

~o~o~o~

It was a celebration the likes of which she had not seen before. Lord Vanderbilt gathered men of influence, of statures so high she would not be surprised if the queen herself walked through the yawning gates of Vanderbilt castle. All around her there were jugglers, and bards, musicians who wore colors so thick and stark they would have blinded her Purist grandfather had he not already been killed by Queen Mary.

She was delighted by the throng of people who danced, wondered if this was the same merriment she would eventually find in court when she took her place at the foot of the queen.

There would be jousts in court, and there would be revels like none other. She spied Nathaniel moving about a mill of people. She waved at him. A rebec player with straw colored hair began a bawdy tune, and soon enough a fiddler, holding his instrument steady under his chin, joined in. Together they played their merry tune while skipping to the beat.

Daniel Humphrey threw a coin on the ground. "On the fiddler!" he yelled. Soon enough, to Blair fascination, a small pile of money formed on the ground as the people wagered on who would be left standing of the match.

Finally one of the musicians fell out of beat, to a loud cheer by the gamblers.

She whirled around and found Chuck Bass standing behind her. "My lord! Chuck. Is it this marvelous in the queen's court?"

"I have not the good fortune to visit recently, but from what I heard it is that and more," he told her.

"I knew it," Blair said.

Chuck pointed to the impressive dining table, where a stag roasted on spit and several spiced hare sat for consumption. "On the queen's banquet table you would find ten times the food, with peacock feathers and gilded cages for live birds to entertain you as you stuff yourself full of plenty." Blair smiled at the description. For someone who had not been to the queen's court recently, he remembered much. "Do you enjoy sugar plums?"

Blair grinned. "I cannot wait for the day."

Lord Vanderbilt called his guests to attention, and Blair turned to the old man who held up a silver goblet of sweet wine. Chuck's hand settled on the small of her back. She looked around her for her betrothed, because it seemed the very moment that Lord Vanderbilt would welcome her into the family.

"Friends, cousins, peers, I thank you all for coming to celebrate with me the glorious occasion—"

Blair spied Nathaniel making his way out of the crowd. He approached her somberly, and she curved her lips to comfort him. She raised a hand to him, the hand adorned by his mother's ring. Nathaniel took her hand in his, then brought it down instead of kissing it.

"My grandson, who will inherit it all—"

"Grandfather," Nathaniel interrupted. A hush fell over the room. Nathaniel amended, "Lord Vanderbilt, if I may." He turned to Blair, and Blair could tell at once from the look in his eye. Though he was a stranger, it was still easy to tell. "I cannot marry Lady Blair," he said to his grandfather, although through it he held Blair's gaze. "My heart belongs to someone else. I am deeply sorry to have made you come this far," he said.

Blair swallowed. She looked around them at the myriad faces that looked on in pity, in shock, in horror. In an act that she did not think of, her hand flew up and she slapped him. The trace of her hand was red on his cheek.

Tears of humiliation rose in her eyes. She pulled off the priceless ring and threw it on the ground. She turned around, and saw only Chuck Bass regarding her quietly. He shook his head. "I would have kept the diamond and then sold it to spite the Vanderbilts," was his only consolation to her.

She slowed when he saw the somber man with light, graying hair waiting at the corridor, still armed with a broadsword to his hip. He was clad in leather doublet and breeches, and his face was worn and shamed. Beside him was her Dorota, wringing her hands in front of her.

"My lady," he greeted.

Blair kept a small smile on her face. She was flush with humiliation, but it did not mean she was to crumble. When the old man moved to take her hand, she was flustered at the lapse in her manners. She held up her hand and he took it, then kissed her knuckles. "My lord?" she said, hazarding at a title.

"Bass," he offered. "Northumberland."

"Father," Chuck said quietly.

Blair quickly pulled her hand out of his grasp. "Your grace," she greeted coolly. She was in front of a traitor, at the very least the family of a traitor. A touch could well stain her reputation and affect her bid for a post with her majesty. This was Chuck Bass' father. She should have recognized the name, but for the life of her all the lessons in her life translated only to titles.

"Lest you forget," the duke said to her, "it was my brother who sought to install Lady Jane to the throne, not I."

"He was in France," the maid offered.

Blair turned slowly and eyed her maid. "You knew of this?" she demanded.

Dorota swallowed in fear. She nodded. "Please, Lady Blair, listen to the duke."

"Very well," she said haughtily. "My lord Northumberland, what brings here?"

"Lady Blair, it is with great sorrow that I ask you to leave with me and remain in my care. I am your guardian now."

Blair blinked at the words. "My father would return for me, right after he is done with the Netherlands. Surely you cannot take a ward whose father is merely away on a mission for the queen."

She thought she caught the answer in the duke's eyes, yet whatever conclusion she drew was quickly covered as Chuck Bass placed an arm around her shoulders and muttered to her in a calming voice that reminded her of a moonlit pool.

Their voices, their voices converged around her. Her father. Out there away in a strange land, with no one who knew him save for Roman and the duke to hold his hand. She swayed and she clutched at the arms that were closest to her. And she fell, deep down into the darkness that was this harsh reality that ripped into her.

She woke in a bed that was not hers, in chambers that were not in her home. Blair sat up in the bed and saw the dark silhouette that sat by her window, recognized it immediately.

"Chuck," she breathed.

He stayed in his seat, turned his head to her and the only thing she could see that shone out of the shadows were the brilliance of his eyes. "They will care for you here," he assured her. "The queen sold your wardship to my father for his service in the Netherlands." She flinched at the word, wondered if she would ever hear of the country once again without feeling the pang of death. "Your estates are in his hands, but he is a shrewd man and you will not lose your monies."

"You speak as if this is goodbye."

Chuck sighed. "I am leaving for Cambridge on the morrow, and I will be there for a long time, Blair." He paused. "I thought for certain you would be wed to Nathaniel by now." And then he assured her, "You are beautiful, and have a fine dowry. You will be out of this place within the blink of an eye." And then he stood, placed a kiss on her forehead. "You are a faerie queen," he reminded her. "This is but a little turmoil, a mortal strife."

She nodded, and her tears fell. "Next you hear, I will be at the right hand of the queen," she said. "There is nothing I want more. And I will take it."

"I have no doubt of it."

tbc

The hardest thing, apparently, is choosing a title.


	2. Part 1

**AN: **Thank you for the amazing welcome for this fic. I am happy you're on board. I will endeavor to respond to you and show my appreciation. Your reviews mean a lot. I hope you enjoy this because I was really really really excited to write this fic.

**Part 1**

She was a lady of the very highest esteem. When she walked into those halls, she would be as pure and royal, as glorified and celebrated, as all the Tudors. What she lacked in birth—and certainly her birth was grand enough to matter to the court—ambition and drive would fill. After all, no young woman received an invitation to court for no reason at all.

The man beside her was an accessory—a necessary pass at best. Yet Marcus' sumptuary bore crusted jewels on his chest, and he bore them well. As they walked, and some of the lords and ladies turned to them, they inclined their head with respect and recognition and she was satisfied. She might keep him awhile. Her guardian had chosen well on her escort.

"My lord," she said sweetly to the man beside her, "I would meet the court."

Surely she would have use for Marcus yet. It would have been silly if the only purpose for this strange betrothal was entrance to Whitehall. If so then there should have been no need for a ring, or an agreement between Lord Beaton and Northumberland.

"Your wish is my command," Marcus assured her, with what sounded like exasperation in his voice, one she did not appreciate.

"It certainly is," she retorted. It had been a long and hard journey to court, and she did not speak only of the week they were astride palfreys or trapped within thin-cushioned carriages, jarred and shook inside as they trekked the rocky roads.

"Do not think I would not care to abandon you, Lady Blair," he warned her in his quiet voice, "if I so choose."

And the warning sat not well on her. How dare Marcus ruin her fantastical day, her very first in court, when Dorota had fashioned her hair in the pleated braid they had planned for many years ago? And she wore a pretty layered gown that she had been earned for being warm and generous to the widow that Bartholomew wooed. She was the image of perfection, straight out of the dreams she had of this very day.

She scowled. After all, only Marcus' presence was a deviation from her dream, and it was his very presence that ruined what success she managed.

"I am sick of this charade," he told her. Marcus frowned. "When I agreed to escort you, I had thought you truly wished to be my lady."

Blair's eyes narrowed. "When I considered to be your lady, I had not known of your dirty, infected, sick, perversion."

"Enough. I would leave you here, and as nameless as you are, you would be thrown out of court in no time."

"Will you?" she demanded, her voice brave and firm. Yet his threat was very real, and she had no doubt it would happen. Whitehall was full to the rafters and it was only by virtue of Lord Beaton's esteem that she was inside. She could see the heavy banquet table, as well as the merrymakers in attire more colorful and grandiose than any she had seen before. She blinked when a burst of fire flew out of a man's mouth. She had not seen it before, but she had heard of these firebreathers who learned their craft in Persia. She had no wish to leave.

Marcus could tell that truly wanted to stay, and played his cards as such.

But she would take what she wanted. As alone as she was in the world, with only a devoted maid and an old man with suspicious intentions to back her, Blair had learned to play her cards as well, if not better than most men she knew. "You would not leave, my lord," she said to him. "Else what pathetical news should befall your father, so poor and old and cuckolded by his own son."

Marcus drew in a sharp breath, then grasped her arm firmly. Blair pasted on a smile, because she had won at least this skirmish. She would win the war yet. When she took her place with Elizabeth, she could rid herself of her foul fiancé once and for all. His hold stung a tad, but she did not complain. Instead she allowed a calm to wash over her, and she imagined she emanated a soothing, peaceful royalty about her.

He brought her first to two ladies in the court, and introduced them as the wives of a viscount and a baron, both of whom lived in estates close to his land. Blair was polite as she greeted them, and allowed the conversation to take a natural turn to its conclusion.

"That should make you happy," Marcus muttered.

"I would be happy if you secure me a place with the queen."

"Even I cannot do that," he said.

"I have made the acquaintance of a viscountess and a baroness, both of whom are no use to me," she cut sharply. "They are country wives, if they are anything at all. I am not happy, Marcus."

"Did you truly believe you would arrive in count and have Gloriana at your feet, pleading for your service?" he returned. Marcus shook his head in disbelief, and Blair could read it in his eyes. "For such a feat you do not need me, nor my father. You would need someone from the council."

"The council?" Blair repeated.

Marcus pointed to the dais, and Blair saw a small group of men who gathered near the empty gilded seat. It was a varied group, from an old graying man in an austere black frock to a courtier closer to her age, in a cream silver lined doublet. The group conversed within their little circle, and Blair drew a deep breath at the prospect of coming closer. The closer to them, the closer to the empty seat of Elizabeth.

"Those men have the queen's ear," Marcus related. "Unfortunately, my dear, sweet lady, you have caught yourself a wealthy lord with no influence with the queen."

Blair's lips curled. "I had suspected you would be of little use to me," she shared.

"Should we sever our arrangement now?" Marcus invited. "You are in court, and you will never breathe a word of what you have seen to my father."

"Lest he disinherits you, and you will be a pauper with no gold to support your aging stepmother," Blair pointed out.

Marcus sighed. "What else is it you want from me?"

Blair considered the question, then assessed the men from the council. Her eyebrows rose when from afar two men from the circle turned to her and raised their cups. Her lips curved. It would be easier than she had first determined. Blair nodded towards the dais.

"Since you cannot complete one simple task, then hand me off to another prospect," she decided.

Would to God that she could complete her mission, and reach her goal without depending on another. But Elizabeth had shown her that with enough ambition and intelligence, a woman could take all that she deserved. Sometimes though—and Blair always thought back to the hundreds who needed to die for Gloriana to take the crown—there were sacrifices to be made. Elizabeth's cousin Mary was proof of that.

Marcus was her Blair's first sacrifice on the road to her dream.

On to the next one.

"Do not whore yourself to the men in this court," Marcus advised her. "No dream is worth the sacrifice."

Blair glared at Marcus, then asked, "Have you ever touched me intimately, my lord?"

"My hand crept no farther than your hand!" Marcus protested.

"And yet you paid for our travel, our lodgings, and commissioned dresses for me." She shook her head. "Do not think any man would outplay me," she advised. Since Nate, and his blasted humiliating severance of their betrothal, in front of the dozens of guests in Vanderbilt castle, she had sworn never to be fooled by a man again. Conversations over a steaming cup of thin brew by a fire every night that Bartholomew was in the estate—and she had learned many of the ways that men manipulate their women.

She had been trained well, educated by the very best.

"When my brother sought to install Jane Grey into the throne, and they lost, our proud name was tarnished," Bartholomew had shared to her one night. "Yet here I sit, in one of the largest castles gifted by the queen, bearing a title of the peerage that should have long since been singed by treason."

But Bartholomew had fought with the queen's army, and gone on missions for her benefit. "How?" she still asked, curious to glean what crumbs she could.

Bartholomew shared, "Once you have your eye on the prize, you do not surrender."

Her lips had curved, because there was no moment that she forgot about her sole ambition.

"Everything that you do, Blair, should be building towards that goal." And she nodded. "No matter who you trample, no matter who falls wayside. Keep on." Bartholomew had sipped his brew, and she felt as if he assessed her from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair. "They will all be fooled by your appearance, would think you a wilting mademoiselle for your pale skin and your dark eyes. But you have what it takes."

"I do," she repeated, pleased by the words.

"This is how we survive, Blair," he told her.

She brushed away the memory, though she would revisit those nights of conversation with the man. She had learned, and had learned well. Not even the hurt look on Marcus' face could make her think twice about her plan. The council seemed happily ensconced in their own little world.

She could not wait to enter.

She walked with Marcus closer to the group, then turned to her escort and waited for action. Marcus was slow to move as he watched the interaction.

"We will not go with Cecil," he murmured. "He is too involved with the affairs of the state to pay any mind to a post with the ladies in waiting." Blair glanced towards where Marcus looked, and agreed. There would be no way to charm or outmaneuver the old man. "Walsingham," he considered. Blair shuddered at the sight. "No."

Marcus shook his head. "I need a drink."

He did not wait for her response before he strode away from her. But she was not worried. He would return. Even if it were just for fear, or his distrust that she would not reveal his secret. There were handsome men in the queen's council. No wonder her ladies dropped like leaves as they married and became full with babes. She had once heard tell of a story of the daughter of a third generation earl who came to serve with the queen and fell in love with the queen's favorite courtier. The poor girl had been shamed in public, and sent packing.

Whatever possessed a girl such as that to behave in a manner that lost her a privileged place?

She turned around and found herself in front of the handsome man a couple of years her senior, who gave her a smile and a courteous bow. "Will you dance with me?"

And people looked on with amusement, with curiosity, at her. On Marcus' arm she had been momentarily seen, but the interest she received now, with this courtier in front of her, was different. Blair placed a hand on his arm and romped with him on the floor, causing merry laughter and people moved back to allow them the space.

He lifted her up, and Blair laughed at the exhilaration of being so high up in the air. She grasped his shoulders to hold steady.

"You will not fall," he assured her, even as he allowed her feet to touch the ground.

Blair pressed her back on him. "And you would have me trust you?"

"Of course," he said into her ear. "Have you not noticed yet my dear friend has got his eyes on you?" He took her by her waist and caught her up to his chest, and he whirled and whirled with her. Blair craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the friend. "Pity you have come with a man. But if we can rid ourselves of Marcus Beaton, I would say Bass would give you a merry romp in his bed."

Blair's steps faltered. The man slowed the movement until they staggered to a stop. Blair turned around and found him. She broke into a large smile. The figure that she had seen, in the cream-colored doublet from the dais. Up close it was easy to recognize him. "Chuck!" she exclaimed. And then she picked up the skirt of her gown and ran towards him. She threw her arms around him and pressed her body close.

"My lady," he said gruffly into her ear. "As well as your body curves to me, I fear we shall need a private room for this." He breathed in the smell of her hair.

A good romp, her dancing partner had said. Could it be? She pulled away and looked up at Chuck. "Chuck," she repeated. "Do you not remember me?"

The confusion in his eyes cleared, at the same time that a flush pooled in his cheeks. His hand cupped her cheek. There was a twinkle in his eye when he said, "Lady Blair." Her smile grew wider. "You have grown more beautiful these past years."

"Years you have not darkened your father's door," she reminded him.

"So," he considered, eyeing her, "you have turned into a butterfly in Northumberland." He looked up at those around them, then nodded at her dancing partner. "Essex," he said. And then he placed an arm around her waist and drew her to the corner, behind the curtains, to afford them with some quiet. "You said you would make it to court, and you have."

"I have," she said. "You knew it would happen."

"How did you make it to court?" Chuck asked.

"Your father's found a man to marry me," she told him. "But I would have my time in court before I settle with any man."

Chuck shook his head. "Where is this fellow of good fortune?"

"Somewhere I do not know," she said with a shrug. "Truth to tell, Chuck, I have no desire for him. But he has done his part and I am here. I will dispose of him by night's end."

Chuck laughed. He took her hand, then directed her back to the merriment. "Tell me. Where is this paragon of virtue who allowed his woman free in court?"

The sight of Marcus' tall figure diminished a little of the height in which she soared. Blair pointed to Marcus. Chuck grinned. He glanced at her, and Blair swore she could see the sparkle of admiration in his regard. He told her, "He would not last."

"I agree," she said.

"You have sharper of a wit, and I have not even heard him speak."

"Yet I need him to come to court," Blair pointed out. "If ever there was fairness in this world, I could come to court for my mind and my heart, without the need for Marcus Beaton." Chuck Bass was in the council. Chuck Bass could make this happen for her. And she would not need Marcus any further. But it had been years since their first short meeting, and she wondered if he even remember that first kiss in the pool. Blair wondered what work would need to be done to take what she needed, with Chuck Bass paving her way. Uncertainly, she suggested, "Help me rid myself of Marcus Beaton."

"Are you asking me to—"

"Send him off home with no claim to me," she said. "Send him off home but help me stay in court without a man."

"You are not without a man," he told her.

"Marcus needs to go. I have no wish to marry him," she said. She lowered her gaze to the floor, so that her lashes shielded her eyes. Her wet lashes.

"I am a man," he clarified. Chuck placed a finger on her chin and tipped up her head so she could look into his eyes. "With or without your fiancé, there is a man looking after you."

There. Exactly what she needed.

Bart trained her well. Though, it seemed, he needed to spend more time teaching his son ways to foil a woman's wiles. "What of Marcus?" she whispered.

"I will handle it," he assured her. Chuck brought her hand up to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "I will return, and by the time I have sent Marcus back home the queen would be here. Let me take you to her."

She gasped. "Would you?"

"Of course." He turned to walk away, and Blair stifled her grin. So completely easy. "My father would never force a woman's hand," he said softly. His eyes narrowed and he gestured with his fingers. "Did you tell him you agreed to marry Marcus?"

Blair caught her breath. Maybe it was not as easy. "I did," she admitted. "I needed to go to court."

Chuck nodded. "And the duke would never allow you to come unescorted." She nodded. "So you pulled wool over Bartholomew Bass' eyes and succeeded."

"No one pulls wool over Bartholomew Bass' eyes. He chooses to allow your belief that I have fooled him." Blair pointed out. And then, she assessed Chuck Bass' face, so completely guileless. Did he inherit his father's trait of it? "But truly, no one understands my greatest desire more than your father."

She swallowed, now uncertain whether or not Chuck truly did not suspect her white lies, her clever manipulation.

"Well," he said with a smile, and once more she could believe he was as he seemed, "welcome to court, Lady Blair."

Chuck walked away from her, and towards Marcus as she had requested. Marcus nodded, and as he left Chuck glanced back at her and waved a hand.

Blair's lips parted. Why, she did not know, but Heavens! Was it his father? Was it her own motives that she read into him? She bit her lip. He had not done one foul deed, nor uttered a stray word. But she did not trust him at all.

tbc


	3. Part 2

**Part 2**

"You have relented then," the old bearded Cecil greeted him upon his return to the circle.

Chuck glanced back towards where Lady Blair, flushed with the exhilaration of meeting the queen. She had on this smile, a knowing one, and he recognized it for one that said she knew she was far more superior than those who surrounded her. She bided her time only to rise from the ranks of the stately court. "She would take her place beside the queen yet," he murmured.

She must have felt him watching her, because she turned to him and blew him a kiss of gratitude.

"Go on, Bass." Cecil shifted to Essex, only just rejoining the council. Chuck caught Blair's surprise at seeing her recent dancing partner within the circle. Within a beat her lips curved into a frown. "I care not what the answer is—give it to the man or not. But I would that this is over and we can move to matters more important to the kingdom."

"Lord Burghley," Essex began, "can you not see the young man is a tad distracted for now?" And in a familiar manner that Chuck was certain Cecil did not appreciate, Essex placed a hand on the older man's shoulder. "The kingdom will not burn for a delay in giving reward to a man who had passed years ago."

And when the youth from the council converged around Cecil, Chuck knew it displeased the old man. Cecil shuffled off to find his place with the queen, who at least listened to him when Essex was not around.

"Bass, I am aware of your tight hand around our purse strings."

"The queen relies on my word to ensure what little we have in the coffers are safe. I would not have us bleed out gold." Another man approached Blair, just as he thought. Yet Lady Blair waved him off as courteously as she could and walked towards a group of young women that Chuck recognized as the queen's ladies. One of them, in fact, had been with the queen when he introduced Blair. She was making her way around without help. "Yet if it were the lands, I would be more than happy. We can ask the offspring to commit annual contributions to the coffers. For making the land profitable," he assessed.

"And you intend to explain this arrangement to the family you will reward?" Essex challenged.

"Harold Waldorf did serve us well in the Netherlands. And the queen will not allow my purchase of the castle by Warwick."

"And you believe Waldorf's family will be amenable to this arrangement—a reward with strings."

Chuck smirked, then nodded back towards the floor. Essex followed his vision, then asked, "The skirt?"

"Between breaks from Cambridge, I gave her her first kiss," he shared, warming at the memory. "And you have seen how she greeted me this day. Would that she were a little less malleable in hands like mine," he scoffed.

"You blighter!" Essex exclaimed. "Her majesty would not sell to you her most favorite castle, but you would hand it off to a hero's daughter so you can graze your animals?"

Chuck called for a serving man to fill his cup. When it was near overflowing, he raised the wine to his lips and swallowed the sweet liquid. "We all have ambition, Robert," he said. And then, quietly, and only because he was certain that it was only Essex who would hear him, "Deny that you warm the queen's bed for your new office." Essex's lips thinned. "A man as new to the court as you are could not possibly be the best candidate to be Master of the Horse among all these statesmen."

"Yet that you would use an innocent girl," Essex muttered. "The queen is intelligent. She can take care of herself. She can have me beheaded should she wish it. No, her majesty is never taken advantage of. Not the way you plan to do with the Waldorf girl."

Blair was no longer with the queen's ladies, and he hoped for their sake it was not they that turned her away. She now made her way to the Lord Chancellor. Sir Hatton seemed surprised at the approach of a young, unescorted lady, but bowed deeply in her presence. Within moments, Blair had the Lord High Chancellor handing her a cup of wine.

"There is no man yet born equipped to take advantage of Lady Blair," he assured Essex.

He made his way down the dais, and then turned to Essex. "Tell Lord Burghley that we may now move on to other matters of the state. The kingdom's coffers are safe for now. Confer upon Lord Waldorf's family our gratitude for his sacrifice—and tell him those are the lands and the castle beside Warwick."

"I fear I must warn you, Bass; One day, you will regret this," Essex called out.

Chuck waved away the words and walked over towards where Blair conversed with Sir Hatton. When he drew near, Blair placed a hand on the Chancellor's elbow and turned him towards Chuck. "My Lord Chancellor, look who has come to give tidings." Sir Hatton bowed his head, and Chuck bowed back even more deeply. "You have made the acquaintance of Lord Warwick, Sir Hatton?"

The man was one of the queen's busiest, more powerful—second only to Lord Burghley. He held the courts in the palm of his hand, and Chuck could think of no more powerful ally.

"I have not met this young man," Sir Hatton pronounced. "But you are one of the queen's men and I know of you. I have heard tell of the decisions you have helped the queen reach about our monies. I must say, Bass, I have not met a courtier your age who have quite the level head."

The words surprised him. His gaze slammed to Blair's, who appeared self-satisfied. His lips curved in surprise. Sir Hatton patted his arm. "What say you and I meet over supper one of these days? There is a business of port wine that has been offered to me. I would like the advice of a man whose word is golden to Elizabeth."

The Chancellor held up a hand in a gesture for patience, and then walked after a maid bearing a bottle of wine. As he called to the girl, Chuck glanced back at Blair. "What is this?" he whispered.

She sipped at her wine, then patted the front of his doublet. "Gain the confidence of the Chancellor now, that in a dismal day when you need the law behind you."

"I have Elizabeth behind me," Chuck argued. In this age, there was nothing more powerful.

"It may not be necessary now, but in the future when you have need of the law, the Lord Chancellor must be aware of you."

Sir Hatton returned, and looked to him with expectation. Chuck raised his cup, then nodded. "I would most certainly be honored to speak to you about your businesses, Sir Hatton. But if you would allow me, I must state that a permanent import of port wine is a ridiculous choice."

Blair's lips parted in surprise. The Chancellor frowned. "Young man, port wine had been a favorite of Henry, and the court's winery had never lacked for port wine for a century now." He shook his head. "The court cannot live without port."

"The queen is hounded by Spain and a Portuguese king. Import of port wine will be tenuous at best, with threat of war flitting about."

Blair looked up warily at the Chancellor. Sir Hatton scratched his chin. And then, finally, he acknowledged, "So there is no business in the import of port wine."

"On the contrary, Lord Chancellor." Chuck's lips curved. "By the state of affairs we have a year before war. Purchase a strong warehouse, and import as much port as you can store. Come the beginning of war when Portugal cannot send you wine, your stock should fetch more than its fair price in the market."

"Your gold would be asleep for nigh on a dozen moons."

"Better asleep than bleeding into an unprofitable land," Chuck murmured, making certain that Blair would understand and retain the argument. "If the monies were spent on land, and it lay there untilled or unused, coffers would bleed gold into the soil. There are taxes to be paid, and upkeep of castles. In fact, Lady Blair, oft times large lands and estates become more of a burden than a blessing to untutored owners."

She frowned, because the words had no value to her. But later tonight, she would receive word of her inheritance, and Chuck was certain her sharp wit would recall his advice. Chuck shook Sir Hatton's hand before the Chancellor departed bearing his priceless advice. The brief interaction would more than quadruple the Chancellor's funds, and with it he had raised his profile another level with the man.

Blair's hand fluttered to his arm. "You were brilliant, Chuck," she exclaimed.

"You," he said in admiration, "were the brilliant one. I had no value to Hatton, not until today."

She smiled. "Well, if you are to be my defender in this court, I have to make certain you are as influential as any other."

Chuck placed both of his hands on her hips, and remembered that night at the pool near Vanderbilt castle when he had held her this same way. They had been strangers who imagined much fantastical presence around them. And so, half-teasingly, he reminded her, "I seem to remember you had thought me a wondrous creature even nameless, bearing none of this grand couture, bathed only by the moon."

"Certainly, my lord," she teased back. "Yet with influence, you become more and more to me."

A merry, provocative, chilling blast of trumpets and sackbuts resounded. Chuck placed a hand on the small of her back as they both turned to the open doorway. Blair's hand clutched at his arm. Gloriana was to enter, and the court fell low into the men's bows and the women's curtsies. No head was higher than that of the queen. Blair, unused to the position, teetered at her feet, so Chuck wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady against him.

"Thank you," she breathed.

When finally the queen sat up on her elevated throne, sitting on her pedestal, the court stood up straight. Chuck saw the queen nod towards him, knew that Cecil had spoken to her about his decision on Waldorf's prize. The queen's hand was heavy with her rings, but she managed to crook her fingers to call him to her.

He turned to Blair, and she was wide-eyed when she looked back up at him. Sometimes, when she appeared fearful or uncertain, he thought her innocent. But he knew better now, had heard her skillful manipulation and seen how she rose from a newly arrived stranger to sipping wine with the Lord Chancellor in merely a night.

"I must leave you here," he told her, in case there was some truth in the uncertainty in her eyes. She did provide him a brief and stellar meeting with Hatton, and he would not have her think she had been abandoned.

"It is the queen," she responded. "The queen comes first, Chuck. Always."

"I am in no trouble," he added. "You shall see. When her majesty is displeased, it is quite obvious. Her humors run sanguine in its extreme, and we shall all fall down."

The assurance made her chuckle. She made her way to the group of ladies, who in turn hurried away to approach the queen, eager to serve. Blair stood alone at the center of the floor, and despite his desire to keep her company he needed to return to work. Chuck walked towards the queen's pedestal and bowed. Upon his arrival, Essex passed by him.

He glanced back, and found Blair now accompanied by two of Elizabeth's ladies, young wards of no other than Walsingham. She listened intently as the two talked into her ear. Blair turned to gaze at Lord Essex now, clearly intrigued by whatever story was told to her.

"Your majesty," he drawled to the queen.

"Chuck," the queen pronounced, "I have heard of your opinion from Robert." Chuck nodded, because a man does not speak unless asked, to be certain he does not interrupt the queen. "Lands—the lands that you so viciously fought to purchase. You are willing to give it over, Chuck?"

Chuck bowed his head. "Your majesty's will is not for those lands to be mine. I would, as always, bow to your decision."

"You understand, Chuck, that I would rather your heart and mine be England's, as one of my trusted men here in court. You are wasted in the country as a farmhand." Elizabeth's lips screwed into a grimace. "I have lost enough with your father's demand for retirement into Northumberland after that godforsaken visit into the Netherlands. I would not lose you to fresh country air and buxom milkmaids."

He chuckled. "Have no fear of that, your majesty. I have no taste for buxom milkmaids."

"I know of your thirst for my ladies. And if they were more intelligent they would speak with each other and learn that you have no more than a romp in the sack planned for them."

"If they wish to believe they are the one special lady who could tame my ways—"

And then, unexpectedly, Elizabeth laughed. The queen's bawdy, masculine laughter rumbled to the rafters. She slapped at the table before her. A hush fell through the court, but when Elizabeth continued her wholehearted laughter, the lords and ladies around laughed softly in unison.

Chuck turned and found everyone joined in the humor that yet no one else understood or heard. Everyone, that was, except for Blair and Essex—over at the corner speaking quietly. And he wanted to yank Essex away from Blair. What stupid decision, with the queen right in the room.

Finally, the queen waved away the laughter. She wiped at her eyes and shook her head. "Ah Charles Bass, you do so entertain me. And my silly ladies, they entertain me oft times with their lack of foresight." She shrugged. "I can only advice them, and do so much. If they insist on the impossible, then I respect their decision."

Chuck craned his neck to check once more if Essex still insisted on his thoughtlessness. Chuck spotted Blair laughing softly, her hand resting on Essex's arm.

"On to questionable decisions," Elizabeth said good-naturedly. "Have you seen Lord Essex?"

"I have not. But I can look for him."

"Would you do that, Chuck?"

"Anything for you, your majesty."

Chuck walked away from the queen, careful not to turn his back on her within sight. When he had finally stepped far enough away, Chuck turned and stalked towards Blair and Essex. At the sight of him, Blair brightened. Chuck curtly turned to Essex and said, "Robert, the queen is calling for you."

Chuck waited until Essex had walked away and out of earshot before returning his attention to Blair. "I take it you were entertained by Robert."

Blair grinned, then nodded. "I have made the acquaintance of two of the queen's ladies in waiting."

"Walsingham's wards," he said. "I saw you from afar."

She was flushed with excitement once more. Blair stifled a large smile and she told him, "They have told me many stories from court."

"Enjoyable stories, I take it."

"Did you know," she said in a hushed whisper, "that Lord Essex is the queen's favorite?" Slowly, Chuck nodded. Truly, everyone knew it. "He is such a favorite that he has become Master of the Horse. Can you believe it, Chuck? He is but two years older than us."

The admiration in her voice chafed at him, because she had the same admiration during his impressive dealing with Sir Hatton earlier.

And he had cleverly pointed out to Essex only earlier that night, that his new office came with the deep stain aroused by his relations with the queen.

She grabbed his arm and called his attention, and Chuck saw Essex now standing with the queen engaged in conversation. He had been speaking with the queen at that short distance as well, but Blair never saw it for her conversation with Essex.

Blair drew him by the hand so that they stepped out of the large hall where Elizabeth held court. Chuck allowed her to pull him despite that he could so easily stop their flight. They left the banqueting hall and emerged out into the darkness of the tiltyard, where the jousting of the morrow was to occur. The workers employed to prepare the place had long since gone. In the darkness there was not much work to be done. But the seats had been decorated and plush cushions now lay on the area where the queen and her ladies would watch the men joust.

"Blair, what is it?"

She climbed up to the lists and settled on one stool, nearest the grand chair that had been polished and prepared for the queen. She turned to him, her eyes shone in the darkness with her barely contained merriment. He settled on another stool.

And then he found his arms full of her as she threw herself on him. His arms wrapped around her at once, and he held firmly to her body as her lips latched on to his in a frantic kiss. Chuck closed his eyes, felt himself stir with the sensation. She was soft and pliant and forceful, and he found himself leaning back to take her weight. The stool teetered precariously, and he groaned.

And then she flew up from her seat and settled to sit on his lap, pressing up against him and pulling back his hair in the most delicious fashion.

And then, her mouth lifted, and she asked him, "How was that?"

His manhood was aching and stiff, and he swore she was not so innocent that she did not know it. "It was a pleasant surprise," he answered.

"Am I skilled?" she rushed.

"You are an absolute wonder," he replied. He had thought her interested in Essex. The little gestures and those smiles were clues, yet she had made the same gestures and smiles to him, so it left him more baffled.

"The ladies in waiting—Serena and Penelope… They told me that you are a master in the art of seduction," she whispered.

She moved on his lap, then rested her hands on his chest. Clearly, Lady Blair Waldorf wished him to unravel. "I have some knowledge," he admitted.

Blair lowered herself over to kiss the corner of his lips. He pursed his lips to catch the kiss. "I want some of your knowledge," she stated.

"I would be happy to take you under my wing," he pronounced, if only to feel more of her squirming, untutored movements on top of him. Perhaps during the course of this class he could introduce more the idea of handing the lands the queen was about to give her, into his hands for profit. But gold could not interest him now, business prospects were ideas for inside the court. In the tiltyard, with no others about, he looked up at the open sky and found the moon as heady as it had been in Vanderbilt. "Hello, old friend," he murmured to the bright ball. Forever now he would remember Blair's supple body, her wanton lips, when he saw a full moon.

And then as suddenly as she was in his arms, she was gone. She stood, looking down at him, then said, "Penelope said Essex prefers his women mature and knowledgeable." She shrugged. "I can do naught for my age, but I can certainly become as well-versed in seduction as any other. With your help."

Chuck drew a deep breath. His heart sank in his chest. "Essex."

"He is the queen's favorite," she repeated. "If I am to have any hope at all, I must have one as influential as Essex fighting for my place." And then she said, "Do not look like that, Chuck. I have no plans of sleeping with him. A little flirtation, some seduction. I am certain you can equip me with these skills."

Chuck stood. "All seduction I plan ends up in bed, with a woman's skirt over her head and her feet up in the air." He pulled her up against him. "Or her ankles on my shoulders."

She pushed away gently. "Well, Chuck, I am different." She walked down the lists and hopped down onto the ground.

"You certainly are," he murmured, following closely behind her. Her hips were unmistakable under the heavy skirts. He had felt them under his hands, wondered how they felt without any thread of cloth covering them. She had planned for lessons in seduction, and she had planned them with the master. Certainly she expected that anything could happen. "Are you certain?"

"A chance to learn from a master—how can I of sound mind lose this chance?"

Chuck nodded. If he did not teach her, who knew which other man in court she would approach in this mission she had adopted? And he knew, just knew, no one else would be insane enough to refuse Lady Blair.

"I hope you know, Blair, that you are weaving a dangerous web here," he warned. He fell into step beside her. When she turned to walk back to the banquet hall, he shook his head. "The lessons begin at once," he told her. She swallowed heavily, and he smirked. "Unless, of course, you have changed your mind."

At the challenge, she narrowed her eyes. "I am prepared." And then, her lips curved. She rose on tiptoes, then pressed a kiss on his cheek near his ear. She whispered, "Do not fall in love." Chuck drew back with a frown and looked down at her. She grinned. "Penelope said that is what you told her the night you romped in the sack with her."

And he was almost offended now by what she had learned from others about him. He cupped her jaw and lifted his chin so he could stare into her eyes. "Like you said, Blair, you are different. That is the last time you bring in the past, or else the lessons are over."

He recognized the respect in her eyes when she nodded and acquiesced. "No more talk of the past."

His hand wrapped around hers and he drew her towards his chambers.

tbc


	4. Part 3

**Part 3**

"In the end, my dear, the fruit of it all will make up for the toil," Bartholomew Bass told her once, as they sat on their horses. There was a biting chill in the air up on the hills, and the moors sprawled wide and wet before them.

And at the sight before her, one could not help but agree. The ride was painful, yet at the top of the world it was exhilarating and cold. With Northumbria before her she felt like a queen.

"Up here, we answer to no one," Bartholomew told her.

"And what of the queen?" she prompted, because as grand as her guardian had always seemed to her, he had still pledged fealty to Elizabeth to maintain his holdings after his brother's treason. "Your whole family could have been so easily executed along with Jack in his foolish rebellion. Yet you are here with your vast lands and Chuck is in Cambridge."

Bartholomew turned to his young charge. He did not smile then, but Blair recognized enough that she knew he was pleased by her scrutiny. "And this is why I tell you that the end shall always justify the means by which you reach it." He nodded towards the moors that he loved. "Be it an arduous trek up the hills is this brisk weather to view these lands, or serving a monarch down in London to keep the privilege of being king in your own kingdom."

Blair drew a deep breath of the cold moorland air. "This is a kingdom all its own," she murmured.

In the years she had been Bartholomew Bass' charge, she had witness at the most two of the queen's representatives travel out so far up north. In Northumberland, Bartholomew Bass was king.

"And now, after my service to her, Elizabeth leaves me well enough alone. I live as I please." He eyed his charge again, then asked, "Are you certain you wish to travel down south to be subservient to a monarch?"

And truthfully, she answered, "I have dreamed of nothing more as a child."

"You are not any woman's servant, Blair," he reminded her.

"It is my dream," she insisted.

Slowly, Bartholomew nodded. "Very well, Lady Blair. I shall procure a man for you, with enough substance that the court will not turn you away."

"You will not hand me a mere baron, my lord," she said.

"The son of a duke," Bartholomew assured her.

And there was a particular thrill that raced in her veins at the thought. "Your son?"

Bartholomew shook his head, and Blair regretted her words when she spied the crestfallen expression of the old man. "Chuck would have none of an old man and an old castle. He has sworn to forge his own way in the world, and works for a crotchety old woman to earn his way." She was certain it was unlawful to call the queen such, but as Bartholomew so candidly shared, this was his own kingdom in the north. "Such a pity it is. I have no other son who would love this place. Years of service to the queen to ensure we shall not lose this land—and it is abandoned by my heir."

Blair gentle budged her horse that she would be closer to her guardian. She reached out a hand and placed it over the old man's gloved one. She could speak naught for Chuck Bass, and his intentions in the world. But she could speak for the last three years that she had been under Northumberland's care. "Fear not, my lord. I love your land, and your castle, and your ridiculous freezing fields."

And finally, a little change in his demeanor, and she saw his version of a smile. "And yet you shall descend upon the court."

"Like an angel on earth," she teased. And then, she patted the old duke's gloved hand. "As you said, my lord, it is the end that shall matter. What if this long and arduous journey should have its eventual end here?"

Bartholomew grunted, then turned to face the dancing sun. His eyes squinted against the red and orange sky. Blair turned her gaze to the sunset.

"My son insisted that I had bought your wardship for your inheritance," Bartholomew stated. And Blair had suspected as much, had deplored languishing in the north when she first learned that her father had perished in the Netherlands and the queen had handed her off to a stranger. But within weeks in the old man's company, the reason for her wardship became moot. "It was a sore point before he left."

"Your son allows his heart to rule his head," Blair provided, despite the brief moments that she had shared with the young man.

"I had once believed I had no daughter of my own," he told her. "A year ago I realized, I had none only by blood." At the words, Blair's attention shifted back to Bartholomew. "If my son will have none of Northumberland, then I shall ensure a satisfactory end. I have yet enough clout that I can work with the queen and leave this all to my daughter."

Blair turned back to the sprawling landscape before her, the acres of land that was in his name. Three years and the place had grown into a home. "My lord, this is not my inheritance to take."

"It is more yours than my son's," he told her.

"You cannot bribe me into abandoning my dreams of going to court, of being one of the queen's ladies," she argued.

Bartholomew shook his head, then nudged his horse into a trot. "You and my son are both blinded by your ambition."

Blair huffed, then nudged her own horse and cantered by the duke. "You cannot think that handing all of this to me will change my mind about court."

"I have been cursed with two stubborn little children," Bartholomew stated. He jerked his head towards the castle, still small and faraway from where they were. "The castle. I shall count til ten and if you reach the gates before I do, tomorrow I shall call for Marcus Beaton and send you off to Elizabeth."

Blair took a deep breath. She lowered her torso to align with the horse's neck, to lessen the wind force that would slow her. The castle was the goal. Her hand wrapped around the horse's reins. Bartholomew saw the action and grunted in displeasure, for he had taught her what danger it could cause if she fell and found herself still attached to the beast.

"It shall make me faster," she said, as Bartholomew counted. "It matters not how I get there, but that I arrive."

Nine. Ten.

And she dug her heel into the horse's rib and raced.

~o~o~o~o~

She lowered her lashes, and hid away her eyes from his view. Chuck Bass stood at the center of the chambers, leaning against the pillar, watching her. Very briefly she raised her gaze and met his. When she caught his eye, her lashes lowered again.

"Perfection," he murmured. He took a bottle of wine and poured some into a goblet, then walked over and handed it to her.

"It was good?"

"So good my trousers are near bursting at the seams."

Blair's lips curved. "I suppose I should be offended by how you speak to me."

He bared his teeth. "Yet you are entertained." He poured himself some wine and sipped. "Perhaps because deep down inside you wish to say all the same things."

Her eyebrows arched. "Yet I am not wearing trousers," she said.

"No, you are not," he said softly. Blair sat on his bed, and Chuck straightened his stance. "I have nothing to teach you about flirting with your eyes. As I said, that was perfection."

Blair shrugged, then cupped the goblet with both hands. "Then what, my lord, can you teach me?" She sipped her wine, and Chuck watched the way her lips kissed the edge of her goblet, how even when she was done, her mouth still rested on the cup as she savored the flavor that clung to the surface.

"I certainly have no complaints about the way you drink," he breathed.

Her eyes fluttered, in a most innocent manner than he suspected she now played him. "Are you certain? Should I not allow my tongue to peek out a catch a drop of wine?"

Chuck strode towards her and took the goblet from her. "There is a line between seduction and disgust." Her tongue still darted out to taste the wine on her lips, and it was not disgusting at all to his eyes. He gazed down at how primly she sat on the bed. He walked over to a chair then motioned for her to sit there.

Blair rose and walked in a stately manner, then settled into the seat. Her gaze fell on the chess board he had only just set. She picked up a knight and moved it into place. "There are very few people in Northumbria," she reminded him. "In lieu of banquets, your father enjoyed Mad Queen's chess."

In response, Chuck moves another piece.

Before Blair could think of another play, he bent down and gathered her skirt in his hand. He very slightly moved the gown so that when she sat, part of her leg was exposed.

She held her breath. He lectured, "A piece of flesh, a small expanse of skin. It is oft more tantalizing to a man than a bare naked woman."

"And when do you suppose I bare a leg?"

"Any time you are able," he answered. "Your leg is a marvel."

Blair released a breath. She swallowed. "The ladies—"

He raised a finger in warning.

"Not about your past, Chuck." And then he nodded to allow her to ask. "Serena van der Woodsen commissions clothes specifically to bare décolletage. Men fancy her bosom. I have always commissioned clothes with any cut that seems popular for the day. I wish to be more aware of how I dress. What is most attractive on my body?"

He shook his head, eyeing her as if she had grown two heads. "You would have me choose one."

She waited expectantly. "I would hope there is at least one I can flaunt with a clever selection of gowns."

"And if I tell you it is all of you?"

"Then I would be heartbroken that there is not one part of me that catches a man's fancy!"

"That is preposterous." And still, she waited, so he quickly admitted, "Your hips. Your derriere. I am fascinated with your bottom."

And even though it was she that asked, she flushed. "Thank you."

"Now, I would that you knew a move I so favor." He reached out his hand and waited for her to rest hers there. The moment she did, he closed his hand around hers and pulled her up out of the chair and into his arms, her back pressed against his front. She gasped for breath at the quick movement. With their entwined hands he drew a slow line down the front of her body, over her gown. With his other hand he grazed his knuckles down her cheek, to her jawbone, and then to her neck.

She shuddered as she breathed.

His head bent to tease her. Very slightly, his tongue peeked to run a moist path against the shell of her ear. With her free hand she reached up and grasped his hair. Her eyes rolled back in pleasure. "Oh." She swallowed air, then whimpered. "Do not dare stop."

He chuckled, and it rumbled into her ear. He used their clasped hands to hold her up against him when her knees buckled. "Are you certain?" And then, just as quickly as he had begun, he released her hand. And even then she still pressed back against his body. "I must choose our lessons with more thought."

Blair gasped. "Your choices have been flawless."

He managed to keep the quirk from his lips. He asked, "Do you truly think Robert Deveraux would do all this in exchange for a seat with the queen?" He was not certain that Essex even knew the art that he had perfected for a long time.

"Do you think he would want me?"

"It is impossible for any man not to desire you," he said. The very thought was ridiculous.

"And yet Nathaniel Archibald would rather sleep with a servant than wed me," she expressed. With a look of disgust, she added, "He humiliated me in the process."

Three long years since and the horror of her engagement banquet still hounded her. He wished he could find his old friend now. Perhaps soon he would pay the man a visit. "Nathaniel Archibald, as dearly as I loved the boy in Cambridge, is one of the stupidest people I know for letting you go."

"And Lord Beaton—who would rather have an aging duchess over me—"

"Is a dupe and a half," he cut in. "Full reason he took no place with the privy council. One word from him and the queen would have rid herself of Marcus Beaton."

He still appeared uncertain. Chuck took her hand and kissed the veins on her wrist. She waited patiently as he peppered kisses along the blue lines. And then she walked over to the chess board and picked up another piece, dropped it into place afterwards.

"I should go lest anyone suspects that I am here."

He nodded. Blair pulled open the door, but he stopped her when he called her name. She turned back to him and waited.

"Your breasts are perfect in my hands." Her mouth fell open. "You want to know which part of you will drive a man wild," he reminded her. "Your bottom is my personal favorite. But your breasts." He shook his head. "I can die with my head on your breast." Her lips curved. "And your hair. I would that your hair wrapped around me at night. I would have a wonderful slumber."

"You are far too kind, my lord," she returned.

He held up a hand. "And your lips. I will dream of your lips on me tonight."

"Were I a wilting miss, I would have fainted long ago. You are much too bold."

"If I were not you would have no respect for me," he answered. He closed his eyes. "Your skin. Your skin is like feather down, and I would be pleased of a lifetime worshipping your skin."

He smelled her fragrance wafting around him, then felt her lips on his cheek. She whispered into his ear, "Your eyes."

Moment later he heard the door close. Chuck opened his eyes to find her gone. He breathed deeply and eyed the board sitting on the table. He stepped close and assessed the last move she had made, then picked up a tower and decided on his next move.

The next morning, Chuck proceeded to the tiltyard after the jousting had already begun. Even the queen had arrived before he did. He was certain not to hear the end of it in the privy chambers. He immediately scanned the crowd for Blair.

As he made his way towards the lists, Chuck noted the hush that fell in the crowd. He turned to the two seated lords prepared for the joust, curious if there had been an injury. Since there was none, his gaze flew to the queen.

And there was Gloriana, red-faced and trembling, pointing away with a heavily ringed finger. He could not see from the distance who it was that the queen was furious with. What he noticed was the way that one of the queen's ladies converged around the queen for distraction.

The lady in question rushed down the list. Finally, he found Blair as she rushed to the side of the weeping woman. He set his jaw and stalked towards her. One lesson she should learn was to keep away from the latest of Elizabeth's banished. Lord Walsingham walked towards the two, and when the lady straightened he realized it was one of Walsingham's wards.

Penelope, he recognized. Walsingham drew Penelope away with him and back to the living quarters. He would imagine that the young lady would be asked to pack and sent away to the country.

When Blair saw him, she met him halfway across the courtyard. The jousting had begun and they hid in the relative privacy despite the open.

"What has happened?"

Blair's gaze flickered to the queen and her ladies. "The queen yelled at Penny. I suppose she had discovered that Penny was carrying a babe."

"The queen would not disgrace one of her ladies for a babe," he said quietly.

Blair frowned, then placed a hand on Chuck's arm. "There is talk that the babe is Robert's."

And it was quite possible. Neither he nor Essex was a saint. None of Elizabeth's men, apart from Walsingham or Cecil, abstained from sampling from the dishes served in court. Suddenly, he wished to stand between Blair and the queen—for no logical reason save a clenching in his gut.

The queen was possessive, at times even irrational, when it came to her favorites. And by far, none drove the queen to the brink as much as Leicester and Essex. "I would that you rethink your plan—"

But her hold on him was tight. She told him, "There is now a vacant place with the queen, Chuck."

tbc


	5. Part 4

**Part 4**

"This is such grand carriage, my lady," Dorota said in her hushed voice. "Are these real gems?" she asked, rubbing her thumb against the stones that protruded from the sill. "My heavens." In the closed confines of the carriage it was difficult not to be overheard, and Chuck was certain to hear her words. But Blair had cautioned her against speaking loud enough for Chuck Bass to hear. Blair could tell that the blighter heard, because his lips quirked in pleasure. He took sublime pride in his treasures, and Blair knew well that he had garnered them of his own volatile businesses.

So instead of pretending that she did not hear, Blair turned to the lord who had insisted she and her maid ride along with him in his empty carriage, then said, "I thank you, my lord, for saving a place for myself and Dorota."

Chuck Bass, of course, had no bone of humility in his body, and answered, "I thought Dorota might enjoy a day in luxury." He picked up a velvet-encased pillow from his side, then handed it to the maid. "Should you need to sleep," he offered with a small smile.

Dorota blushed as she accepted. "Thank you, my lord," she said, like a young maid tickled with a feather. Dorota glanced up at Blair, and her giggles vanished at the censorious look on Blair's face.

Chuck Bass was a flirt, and he could not even leave Dorota well enough alone. She wished to heaven that she would not be subjected to more of the same with the many ladies she would no doubt meet as she continued spending time with the man.

"Sleep," she instructed Dorota.

Promptly enough, the maid settled her head on the velvet pillow and closed her eyes. The flickering lashes did not fool her, but Dorota tried so Blair allowed the infraction to slide.

"Something vile afoot?" Chuck inquired. Blair's eyebrow arched. Had it been her she would have been aware of her sin, yet Chuck Bass clearly defined little a sin. "I have displeased you," he said, coming into the realization.

Her eyes narrowed. Blair pursed her lips.

"I should be used to you!" she said sharply. "It seems to me I would be by your side for longer."

She had been nursing the wound from Chuck Bass' last words before they left Whitehall.

"Ah," he said. "I had been wondering why a thorn seemed stuck up your derriere this whole trip, and thought mayhap the beauty of my carriage would make your heart lighter."

"You have insulted me, and have no gall to say you are sorry."

"Because I am not," he reasoned. "I do not believe you are prepared to set forth on your plan. You need more lessons."

"And every day we come closer and closer to the queen selecting a new lady for Penelope's place!" Blair argued.

He shook his head. "You are not prepared to seduce Essex. I would that you avoid any effort to do so."

Blair huffed. "I am not skilled enough in your estimation," she repeated his message in her own words. She slid forward in her cushioned seat.

"I said naught about your skills."

Blair reached forward and rested her hand on his thigh. Dorota was yet awake, she knew. But she hid nothing from Dorota, and if she failed it was to her that she would run and weep. She squeezed gently at the muscle under her hand. "Not skilled for Essex, yet I can see how you change before me."

"I am not Essex," he murmured, captivated with her gaze.

She drew her hand back sharply, then settled back in her seat and folded her arms before her. She assessed him carefully, avoided his eyes just because any length of time she looked at him she was confused.

"How many lessons more?" she pressed. Any longer in this confusion and she might lose sight of the goal. Even the last lesson that they shared, she had lost all awareness of time and found herself finding a secret way back to her chambers a wee bit before the trumpets blared for morn.

"There is no number." Blair sighed her displeasure, then parted the curtain to look outside. "We are nearing Windsor," she said at their approach. There was a crowd gathering in the square, which slowed their horses. The queen's entourage went on with her processional, and the crowd had stopped and turned, cheered for Gloriana like a deity itself had graced them with her presence.

As the queen passed, the crowd converged again, littered the streets and blocked their way. Chuck noticed the delay, and peered out the window as well. When he grasped the curtain, his fingers brushed against hers. Blair sharply turned when the touch sent a spark on energy shooting from her fingertips up to her nape. Deny it as he might, there was a touch of magic in him.

"If I were one of the queen's ladies we would have been through this crowd together with her majesty," Blair said.

Chuck shook his head. "Cecil rides behind us," he told Blair. "It matters not. We have all been cut from the court until the affair is over."

The angry yelling of the crowd pierced though even Chuck Bass' carriage's cushioned walls. The sound was garbled yet terrible still. Blair turned to him and thought her fear showed in her eyes. He was right. At times such as these she was unskilled yet, and she could not hide her terror at the noise. She reached out blindly, and his hands clasped hers, their fingers twining.

"What is it?" she whispered.

Chuck shut the curtains quickly, then said, "Stay inside the carriage." He pulled away, and her hand tightened in his. "I shall see to the matter."

"You promised," she reminded him. "I am not left without a man."

He nodded. When he had sent Marcus away, he had sworn to her his escort. "I am your man," he assured her. "I am not leaving."

And then her fingers loosened.

"Dorota," he said.

And at once the maid sat up, her eyes clear, obviously awake. She looked up at Chuck, then nodded. "I am staying with my lady," she said.

Chuck nodded, then rose from his seat and left the carriage.

Blair worried her lower lip, then peered out the window from the small slit provided by the curtain. She reached to part it, but drew her hand away when she hesitated. "What do you suppose it is, Dorota?"

Dorota turned around and took a folded wrap from behind her. She shook it free of its folds. Then she flung it over Blair's shoulders and pulled the edges together. "Hold these, my lady." Blair did, and waited for her maid to answer. "I have heard this before," she told Blair. "Never watched it, mind you. I cannot understand why people watch."

"What is it?"

In a hushed voice, Dorota said, "It sounds like an execution."

Blair blinked, then heard a piercing shriek. She gasped. Her hands tightened around her wrap. Once, Bartholomew Bass shared with her the story of his brother's execution, when they had all been tried for treason. Jack Bass had sworn in front of the Chancellor and the queen that one day England would heave Henry's bastard daughter from the throne, and England would rise hand in hand with Spain. Bartholomew had knelt in front of a queen he did not fully trust and vowed allegiance.

And Bartholomew held Northumberland, a land so wild and high north that the queen did not touch him. And Jack Bass had been dragged from the Tower to the square, and in Bartholomew's full view the queen's punishment was meted to him.

"It took three axes to cut his head," Bartholomew shared with her.

The story had been shared so pragmatically, so unemotionally, that she had felt none of this terrible, crawling terror at the sounds surrounding her. "Oh Lord," she whispered. Blair grasped the handle on the door, then turned to Dorota. "We cannot stay!"

"My lady," Dorota exclaimed, "we must! Warwick said—"

"I care not what Warwick said!" Blair cried out. "I answer naught to Chuck Bass. I will not sit in his gilded carriage and listen to death." And then she pushed the door open and emerged from the protective shelter of the carriage. Her shoes hit the muddy ground. Her eyes grew wide at the sight around her.

When all her life she had been raised within her father's tower, and traveled outside only for the trek from there to her prospective husband's castle, the harshest she had seen were the wild moors and sprawling hills of Bass' Northumbria. London, common, low, muddy, angry London was shattering. She glanced back at the carriage, and when she saw Dorota begin to emerge she ran, pushing past the malodorous lot that reached out to touch her clothes, her clean skin, her pleated hair.

She stumbled when the crowd converged and pushed, and she looked up after a long run only to find herself right up front, staring into the eyes of a young woman pushed onto the elevated boards.

Her lips parted. The woman's lips frantically moved, and she heard her faint words over the angry chanting of the crowd.

"I believe in God the Father Almighty—"

Blair's eyes gathered with tears. The young woman looked to be her age, yet her skin was scarred and pocked, and her lips were dry and taut. Her face seemed to have aged beyond her years. She blinked frantically, needing to escape. She could not stay in the carriage because death she did not want to hear. Certainly, she did not wish to witness it.

But the unfortunate soul held her gaze, and it was to be such sin to turn away now. Indeed, she could not turn back. Her feet would not allow her though her mind screamed it at her.

"Creator of Heaven and Earth," she said, joining the prayer, hoping this at least would soothe her soul.

What had the woman done, she wondered, to deserve an end as humiliating and jarring as this? How does a soul in heaven when thrust into St Peter's presence from a scaffold?

The executioner drew close, and slid a dusty sack over the woman's head. With her wrists tied together in front of her, the woman's clasped hands trembled as she shook. The crowd yelled their insults, cried out their curses, and all she could see was a woman who could plain be herself—alone in the square packed full of filthy bodies and filthier souls. The hooded man dropped the looped rope around the woman head, and carefully pulled her into place. Blair covered her mouth with her hand. When your killer was kinder to you than anyone else within your world, you knew it is time to die.

"I believe in the Holy Spirit," she whispered, found the words stutter on her lips. She could not breathe, could not swallow, remembered the last time she had seen her mother in her home, the last time Eleanor and Harold Waldorf had argued. It had been in a small, hidden room far at the end of the family wing, in a place she was not allowed to enter. And she remembered sneaking and hearing Eleanor's whispered words that she was never—her father cautioned—never allowed to repeat. And she knew it now, knew it enough to continue with the dying woman on her execution. "The Holy Catholic church, the Communion of saints, the—"

A jolly, triumphant yell from the crowd, the executioner's raised hand, and then the floorboard dropped.

And she found herself pulled into a tight embrace, her face pressed against warm cloth, and she did not see, heard only the noises, choking, struggling, desperate until slowly, in little spurts, they were gone. And the crowd surrounding her cheered, the arms around her tightened so she could not move. She remained there, in that embrace, and even without seeing who it was that found her she did not struggle. The noises waned, and she slowly gained back her breath.

And it was that it settled back on her. Her tense shoulders loosened, and she pulled herself even more tightly together. Within the circle of his arms she trembled. She grasped the front of his doublet, and then let out a large, sobbing cry.

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, held her while she was racked with tears for a stranger. Under the punishing sun, it mattered not that she had ruined her shoes, or that Cecil, or whoever they were that had been left behind in the procession saw her unraveling. She pulled away from his arms and reached up a hand to wipe her cheek. He quietly drew his own kerchief and dabbed at her face.

"I asked you to stay in the carriage," he reminded her gently. They were alone, and she realized he had led her where none of the court could see her cry.

That he had seen her melt into tears, that he had seen her lose her control—it was shameful. Bartholomew had taught her the greatest power was the ability to appear unflappable, unaffected, unpredictable. "I do not need to do as I am told. I take instructions from no one," she insisted proudly, yet she cursed that her proud statement was accompanied by a sniffle.

"Come," he said with a smile.

And she allowed him to lead her with his hand on her back.

~o~o~o~o~

At the banquet hall, the court moved and danced, conversed and laughed, as if outside on the streets there had not just been murder. There was no talk, no discussion on why the executions had happened. Blair had expected a lively argument on the merits of each punishment meted out by the courts, yet the lords and ladies seemed to be in their own world.

Dorota had cautioned her of the same. While her maid brushed her hair and allowed it to fall down her back freely in tumbling curls, Dorota told her that once they rode past the walls into Windsor castle, the world of London fell and they entered a completely new reality.

"It is your lot," Dorota told her.

"No one will remember her," Blair realized.

"But this is what you want, Lady Blair. Since you were a child, you wished to live with the queen in a marvelous fantasy," her maid reminded her. "Why, when you were up to my knee you had been fashioning rosettes into little crowns that your mother would stitch together and place upon your head."

"A crown," Blair repeated with a smile.

Dorota nodded. "Lady Eleanor made for you delightful gowns and called you a princess."

Not a lady in waiting. The humbler ambition came with age, but to imagine herself in exquisite gowns and homemade crowns seemed so ill in place with the mother she remembered, who along with her father followed such Puritanical somber choices and encouraged her to do the same. While Dorota brushed her hair, Blair caught her hand.

"Dorota," she said softly. The maid met her eyes in the reflection, and waited. "My mother—" Dorota flushed, then returned to brushing Blair's hair. "Dorota, I know you know. What's happened to my mother?"

"My lady, it is not my place—"

Blair's lashes lowered. She smiled at her reflection, then warned, "If you do not tell me, I shall find out on my own. I am certain there is at least one person in court who would have known her."

"Lady Blair, you should not come looking for trouble. See what has happened today—"

Today she had remembered words to a prayer that she had not been taught. In fact, if Harold Waldorf were alive he would have taken powdered soap and washed her mouth, then sent her to read through the Book of Common Prayer for three nights.

"I will find what must be found," Blair told her maid.

Dorota placed the brush back on the dresser, then patted Blair's arms. "There, my lady," she pronounced, changing the subject as quickly as she could.

And so once again she returned to the banquet hall—court seemed to be a neverending banquet she realized now, and not as romantic and intriguing as she had taught—and made her way through those that gathered. At times like these she missed the moors, when she could lose herself riding through unbroken expanses of lands, and race across marshes and breathe cold wet air. Perhaps when the court vacationed she could convince Chuck to travel with her back to Northumbria for a visit. It would certainly make an old man happy, and Bartholomew would be less hurt by her decision to continue on in court despite his bribery.

She caught Chuck's gaze when she arrived, and thankfully enough the queen had been as fashionably late as she had hoped. From the distance between them, her lips curved and she glanced towards the doorway. It was quiet conversation, and from his lessons she knew it was one of the most difficult to perfect. Yet he had established with her that the most important of all was confidence, so she strode towards the door and then slowed her pace. She walked down the corridor and heard the footsteps behind her. She glanced back, triumphantly, and saw him walking after her.

Blair smiled, then climbed the servant's staircase, slowing and moving her hips enough for Chuck to enjoy the journey. Even if Bartholomew clarified that it is the end that mattered, she was beginning to adore the journey as well.

They reached the turrets of the castle, and she loved the sight from above. She laughed a little, because there were two sentries within earshot, and she jumped behind an upthrust tower to hide. Her back rested against the stone wall. She peered and saw Chuck speaking to the guard and handing one a purse.

And then he appeared before her, his eyes predatory in a manner she loved—liked—enjoyed—was not displeased with. It was but natural to raise her arms and when he stepped into the circle, rest those arms on his shoulders. He leaned and she accepted his kiss.

"You have perfected your come hither eyes," he said softly to her.

"I have," she answered. "I wished to thank you. I have been invited to sup with the queen." She added, "And I will sit with Serena, at the far end of the table."

"You are very welcome," he said. "You see, even without exercising your skills on Robert, we will work our way into your place."

"Yet if I had Robert in the palm of my hand, I would likely be sitting much closer to her majesty," she emphasized. And even as she said the words, they were no longer as thrilling as it had been when this all began. And now she wondered if the best use of her time was making inane chatter while supping with Elizabeth, or pressing Dorota for information about Eleanor.

Or perhaps even playing Mad Queen's chess in Chuck's chambers.

"You have more to learn," he told her.

"It is not fair. I can call to you from across the hall, yet still you feel I am not skilled enough for Robert."

And even then, he grinned, dropped a kiss on her nose like they were long lovers. She supposed it was part of her training on flirtation. It was some strategy as well, as she had not once heard a display of affection such as that be involved in a scheme of flirtation.

He asked, "Have you heard from Cecil? Has he asked for your presence?"

And because she knew nothing of politics, she was at a loss. "Why would Lord Burghley wish to speak with me?"

He straightened, then looked around if there was any other around. He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "I cannot tell you without betraying trust," he told her. "But if and when he does, will you swear to me that you would come to me first? Will you trust me to do that?"

It was a matter of trust he spoke of, and right then she was all alone in the unguarded turrets with him. He could fling her off the rafters, or have his way with her, and no one would ever know. And he asked for trust when their very stance was all about trust. "As long as you swear whatever it is will not have me killed like that woman outside."

He shook his head. "I would allow no one to touch one hair on your head." And then lightly, he teased, "If I had my choice, not even Robert."

His words seemed so sincere, and he had been helpful since she arrived. She cupped his cheeks with her gloved hands, then kissed his lips. His hand cradled her head, his fingers buried in her hair. "Then I trust you," she told him. She slanted her lips on his and then said to him, "The air is cold. Take me to your chambers."

He offered his arm to her and she slid a hand there as they made their way back to the staircase. When they reached the corridor, they turned left towards the living wing. He opened the door to his chamber and she slipped inside. The trunks were piled at the foot of the bed, waiting for his servant to set them aside. When she glanced at the table, she saw the chess set laid out with the pieces exactly where they had been when last their left it. He moved to set the fire ablaze.

She took her queen, then set it two paces from the king. He glanced back, then said, "That is a bold move."

"The queen's task is to protect her king," she told him.

He straightened and strode towards her. He assessed the board from her side. Blair felt his arm wrap around her waist. He gestured to the board. "You are putting her in harm's way," he told her.

She looked up at him, studied the angles of his face, adored the curve of his lips. His eyes went from the board to hers. And she responded, "There is one goal. Save the king. It matters not if I sacrifice her. It is the end that matters."

He smiled, then brushed his lips on her temple. She closed her eyes and felt him breathe in her scent. "I love your heart," he said, then took her queen. "Now what shall you do?"

tbc


	6. Part 5

**Part 5**

"Then, my lord," she answered, "I fear I have no choice but to surrender."

Were the world to fall apart outside the four walls of his chambers, Blair Waldorf would not know. Indeed she reached for a sweet puff with her bare fingers like some low-born waif, then placed a sticky mess inside her mouth. The flavor burst and coated her tongue like nothing else she had tasted, and a soft moan escaped her throat. She flushed, because the noise had been loud enough that he looked up from the board he had begun to reset after capturing her queen and king.

"You are, it seems, still a master of scheme and strategy. Much more than I," she said.

Chuck Bass left the board halfway done and walked over to where she stood vanguard over the plate of sweets that his squire had left on his table. He arched an eyebrow to find one piece left from the four that he often had waiting.

When she reached for the last piece, his lips quirked and he said, "You have gone and consumed all my sweets."

Shamelessly, she nodded and popped the last piece into her mouth. "You would that I were free within your chambers. And so I am," she stated.

"And I enjoy them so," he told her. When she reached for the wine, he caught her wrist, then brought up her hand to hover before his lips. There was cream still smeared on her palm, and his tongue darted out to clean it off. "The queen's bakers were the very best from France. I can taste the madness of the French on your skin."

"The madness of the French," she repeated with a smile. She watched as he dropped kiss on her fingers, presumably for the taste of the sweets with which she had selfishly indulged. "It is not the madness of the French. My blood runs wild from summers with the queen of France in their chateau in Anjou."

She drew her hand out of his grasp and reached for the goblet of wine. Blair swallowed the wine, then brought it up to Chuck's lips so that he could drink from the same cup. The wine clung to his lips, and she smiled. There was a slow stirring in her belly, yet she could not help the lightness in her heart that made her stand on the tips of her toes and drop a kiss on his mouth.

His eyes narrowed, as if they shared a private, secret banter. He placed his hands upon her hips, but she slipped from his arms and returned to the chess board. She finished setting the pieces in their places, then took her pawn and moved it two paces.

"May the good Lord help me," he muttered, shaking his head. "Sweets and kisses and wine, and now you would test my strategy?"

"It is an unskilled, shameful man who would be so undone with kisses, Chuck," she reminded him. And then she folded her arms across her chest. "I would see if I can disarm my Lord Essex by plying the same. We know you are more skilled in chess than I. We shall see if you are still skilled after sugar and fermented grape."

His smile vanished, but he proceeded to the board. When earlier he had stood beside her as they finished their game, he stood at the other side now, clearly intent to win. "It is not the sweets nor the wine that muddles my head."

Instead of the pawn, he picked up his knight and began his strategy. Blair picked up another pawn, and waited for his move. After seven more strategic steps, she freed her bishop into a threatening vantage on the board.

"I am winning," she finally crowed, satisfied. "It works, Chuck. If it works on you, it will clearly work on Robert Deveraux."

"As flattered as I am that you will measure the man against me, and consider that a success on me will be a success on Essex," he told her, moving his towers both and placing them in separate paces, locking her out from advancing towards his queen, "you will not take me down."

She gasped. Her gaze flew to his. "My kisses did not disarm you," she said softly, inquisitively.

The question angered him for just a little. Displeased, he said, "Before you plan another move such as what you have just done with the sweets, I would that you inform me."

"Then you would have expected it, and I would know not how well I have played the game," she argued.

"You asked me to help you. I cannot help you if you shall play me as well," he told her. Chuck mercilessly took her king. He lifted the piece up high between them, then dropped it. Blair watched as her piece fell onto her standing queen and the two pieces toppled together on the board. Chuck turned his back on her and shook his head.

"You are angry at me," she said in disbelief.

He did not answer. Instead, he divested himself of his jeweled doublet and stood before her in his tunic.

"Why are you changing? We shall sup with the queen yet."

"I shall send my apologies. My head aches from too much wine," he told her.

"You lie," she challenged him.

Blair pursed her lips. Chuck sat on his bed and faced her. "You have waited to sup with the queen. Go on. Serena is good company. And you do not wish to lose the opportunity to rub elbows with any of the queen's men," he reminded her.

Thought she could not explain it, she had to blink away at tears to see him clearly. "I do not understand why you are displeased."

He swallowed, then nodded. "I beg your pardon, my lady." He moistened his lips, then said softly. "Maybe I have gone too far." He cleared his throat. "Too far in that I wish to remove any doubt in my mind of how skilled you are. I was mistaken. You are prepared for Essex."

She drew in her breath sharply. Blair had always thought the words finally falling from his lips would make her heart soar. Indeed, he ruined the experienced with his unexplained dismay. "I should leave," she said abruptly. Blair picked up her skirts and made her way out the door, down the corridor and back to the hall.

When she returned, Serena waved at her. Blair pasted a smile on her face as she proceeded to her new friend. Together they took their seats at the long table, far enough away from the queen and the members of her council that they could talk freely, but close enough that Blair still felt the chills of being in the queen's company.

The damned blighter, with the way his mind and his heart so quickly changed, could rot in his chambers for all she cared.

"How does Penelope?"

"She has gone to her dowry house for the remainder of her childbed," Serena answered quietly.

"Lady Blair." A hush fell on the table. Blair turned to the end of the table, and found herself facing the queen in the distance. "Warwick sends his apologies for missing supper. It is unlike Charles to sleep in a night." Blair opened her mouth, could find no words. "I hear he was last seen with you."

"Your majesty, he—he—" Confidence, Chuck told her, was the key in seduction. It mattered little if you were a little less beautiful, or if your body loses a little of its gentle curve. Confidence shall fill in all the spaces that you cannot hide. "He says he has had too much wine." Elizabeth's face drew a blank. She frowned, then turned to Cecil, then Walsingham. Blair glanced at Serena and found the blonde staring at her wide-eyed. Blair turned back to the queen. "Tis true, your majesty. Chuck Bass told me he has had too much wine and needs to rest."

Elizabeth laughed bawdily, and the table giggled and guffawed. The queen raised a hand and waved her over. "Come, child. You have as marvelous a humor as dear Charles."

Blair was breathless. Serena patted her back. She pushed away from her seat and her knees knocked together as Elizabeth called her to her side. Blair made her way down the long walk from her end of the table to the queen's. When she reached the queen's side, she remembered Chuck's instructions to her when the queen first entered the banquet hall in Whitehall.

Never higher than the queen's head, he had told her. Blair fell into a wobbling curtsy. Her entire body grew chill when the queen's cold hand cupped her cheek. Elizabeth drew her face up to look. Blair's eyes filled with tears, and she sniffled.

"Tell me, child, why do you weep in the presence of your queen?"

"For that, you majesty," Blair stated. And suddenly she wished that Chuck were here, sitting, watching. "I had dreamed of serving you."

"You are Harold's daughter," Elizabeth finally recognized.

"I am, majesty."

William Cecil leaned over and whispered to Elizabeth, then the queen nodded. "That is right. He did." Then, Elizabeth patted Blair's cheek. "Well, child, eat well and I hope the court pleases you."

Blair released a tremulous breath. She blinked, wondering if there would be more. This would have been the perfect moment for the queen to give her Penelope's vacated place within her ladies.

"The queen has dismissed you, Lady Blair," she heard Essex whisper.

Blair nodded and hastily made her way back to the seat beside Serena. Blair frowned as she returned to her meal.

"You did so well with the queen," Serena told her in congratulations. "Most often, even in the circle of her ladies, we find ourselves wordless in her presence. And you made her laugh!" Serena placed a sweet on the edge of her plate. "This is for you. The sweets vanish within moments they are placed in their trays, so I stole one just for you."

Blair stared at the delectable pastry, then thanked Serena. By the end of the supper, the queen stood with her privy council and they walked away from the hall. Blair picked up her sweet and cupped it in her hand, then waited until the rest retired to their own chambers within the court or in hotels in London.

When she had relative privacy, Blair made her way to Chuck's chambers again. She slipped inside, then found him as he had stated, sleeping on the bed with his back to the door. He must be completely confident that he had not angered anyone, because it was such a vulnerable position to leave one's self unguarded.

From the corner a young man stood from a pallet. Blair's eyes widened. The boy grinned at her, then shrugged. "I'll stay out in the garden, my lady."

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Lord Warwick's squire, my lady. I know enough to stay away when you're around," the boy stated, telling her at once that the boy knew partly at least what arrangement she had with Chuck Bass. She hoped the boy could keep a secret, lest he ruin her entire plan. "Eric, my lady."

"Eric," she repeated. "Listen—"

Eric slapped his hands over his ears. "I hear nothing. I never see anything. No one'll hear me talk about anything."

Blair released a breath of relief when the boy slipped out of the room. She turned back to Chuck. Blair walked over to the chess board and saw the toppled pieces. Gingerly, she placed the sweet she had brought for her at the center of the board. Then, she set the pieces right. She hoped Dorota would not be fearful that she was still not home. Blair shucked off her shoes and climbed into the bed behind Chuck.

And then, easily now, with comfort born of the days they had kissed, and touched, and spoken, Blair slid an arm around his waist. He did not turn around to face her, but he did cover her arm with his and pulled her embrace tighter around him.

At the break of dawn, she woke to a cold, empty bed. Blair sat up on the bed with a start. She had not meant to sleep through the night, merely hold him until he woke and she apologized. Instead, the man had abandoned her in his bed. Of course, Chuck Bass would not think twice about leaving a sleeping woman alone in the bed. Blair stood and fixed her gown. She strode towards the door and stopped when she passed by the chess board and found one of his pawns moved, and the sweet half-eaten and left at the center.

Her heart skipped, and she picked up her half and slid the sweet into her mouth. Blair picked up a pawn and moved it.

Blair rushed to her own chambers, where Dorota sat on the bed waiting. Her maid blinked at her appearance. Blair felt Dorota's eyes wearing her as the maid stared at her hair and her gown. Blair said sharply, "What, Dorota?"

"My lady, I wished to see that you are well. And if you—changed."

"Changed," Blair repeated.

"You—you had your—your—"

"Dorota," Blair drew out in warning, "spill."

"You have lost your maidenhead, my lady. I wished to see you are well."

Blair gasped, then turned to her maid. "I did no such thing!" Her eyes widened, and she stormed towards Dorota. "Who told you that?"

Dorota turned and pointed towards the table where a familiar flaxen-haired boy was asleep. "My lord's squire asked to be allowed to sleep here because you were in his master's bed." Dorota's voice dropped. "The entire night, my lady."

Flustered, Blair shook Eric awake. The boy grumbled. Blair shook harder. Finally, Eric woke and stared up at Blair. "You would speak to no one about anything," she repeated to the boy.

"It was your maid," Eric said in his defense. And then they heard the trumpets signifying the time, and Eric shot up to his feet. "It's the hunt!" he said. Eric grabbed his boots from the floor and hopped up and down as he slid them on. "He will kill me," he muttered. "H eill kill me." And then to Dorota, he said, "I told you to wake me up."

Dorota placed her hands on her hips and glowered at the boy. Blair gasped and grabbed Eric's shoulder. "Do not raise your voice to Dorota!" And then she asked, "Is there a hunt today? Is that where he is?"

"There's a hunt and they're about to leave!" Eric said. "I have to go."

Both Blair and Dorota watched after Eric as he ran from the chambers. Blair turned to her maid, then demanded for a riding smock. Dorta bit her lip, then asked, "Are you certain you are not sore, my lady? You know, because—And my lord is a very imposing man."

Blair felt herself grow flush at the memory of the kisses. If she were not certain that he had forgiven her, there were no more kisses such as those in the future. "I told you, Dorota, we did nothing. He slept," Blair confessed.

Dorota slowed as she brought Blair's riding smock to her. "He slept," Dorota said, crestfallen. "He did not wish to?" And even more quietly, she said, "He could not do it?"

"Oh!" Blair cried in frustration. She opened the windows and saw the closest to the queen gathered in the courtyard. There were even daughters of the queen's gentlemen who came to say farewell. "Those girls," Blair said, as Dorota came to help her out of her gown and into the riding habit. "They are there to display themselves before the queen while their fathers buy them a place in court."

Dorota gathered her hair quickly into a braided ponytail so that it would not interfere as she rode. Blair glanced at herself in the mirror and saw the austere look. Dorota always fashioned her hair so when she would compete with Bartholomew in a race. She looked like a skilled horsewoman, and she was, and it simply would not do.

"Quickly, Dorota. Take out the braid and tie my hair with a ribbon at my side."

The maid did as she was told, but asked, "This will not be the best way to ride, my lady."

Blair assessed the softer look and allowed a tendril of her hair to curl on the other side of her face. She smiled at her reflection and nodded in satisfaction.

There were two men to woo this time, and she had just dreamed up a plan. Moments later, just as the riding party was about to leave, Blair emerged from the living wing and spotted Sir Hatton on the way to his horse. She quickened her pace, and waited for the moment when the old man reached for his water flask.

She braced for impact and bumped onto his side.

The Chancellor glanced down and caught her arm. The man recognized her from the brief introduction they had when Chuck gave him his advice on the business. Blair's lips curved. "My lord Chancellor, I do apologize. I did not notice you."

The old man nodded. "It is my fault. An old man with bleary eyes shan't be in anyone way." And then he looked down at her outfit, then asked, "Were you joining the queen's riding party?"

Blair flushed. She shrugged her shoulders, then said, "I was planning to ride out alone. I was not invited to the hunt."

"Ride out alone?" Sir Hatton said, and Blair thanked the heavens that legends of knights were true to their virtue. The old man escorted her towards the front of the party, then called, "Essex!" Since the queen was now astride her destrier, the Master of the Horse jumped from his horse and attended to the Chancellor. Blair noticed Chuck turn around and when he spotted her, his eyes narrowed. He had demanded to be informed, but this plan did not involve him so she turned away. Sir Hatton continued, "I would that this lovely young woman join the party than ride alone."

Robert Deveraux bowed to Blair, then said, "Come, Lady Blair. I have just the gentle palfrey for you."

Blair smiled in pleasure. "Do you have a sidesaddle?" she asked, and wished that heaven would not strike her down for the pretense.

"Queen Elizabeth abhors sidesaddles," Essex told her. "You are not skilled with a saddle?"

"I have tried it," Blair allowed, downplaying the mad, intense races in the moors of Northumbria.

"Then come," Essex answered, offering his arm. "I shall assist you in your selection." And then, to the rest of the party, he called out, "Go on ahead, my friends. We shall be on your tail very soon."

Blair thanked Sir Hatton as the old man joined the queen's party, then walked with Robert Deveraux to saddle her horse.

tbc


	7. Part 6

**Part 6**

She would be the death of him, he swore. If he were not careful, she would certainly be the bearer of his death and he would happily lead her dagger to his heart for the merciful kill.

Waking up that morning to feel her arms around him had been the most surreal, wonderful feeling that had overcome him since mayhap the comfort of his mother's wound. No other woman he had lain beside had been as supple and as warm. Even fully clothed, the feel of her pliant body, her breath at his nape, aroused in him such heights that he did not dare roll around for fear of waking her with his straining manhood and striking the fear of men within her. At the rather late hour he had still gently turned to cradle her in his sleep.

Eric did not wake him, and he did not blame the young man. He would give his squire a measure of punishment for neglecting his duty. It was only appropriate. But Chuck decided to be lax in this instance given he had advised Eric to be gone when Lady Blair was in his chambers.

The queen's trumpets blared the call for morning, and even then he heard the sounds drift from the open window. He heard Essex's instructions, and marveled that the man could be awake and alert after what no doubt was much carousing in the night before. But Essex was always an ambitious man to be Master of the Horse in so short a time since arriving in court. With his ambition came the hard work that needed to come along with it lest others suspected something was afoul.

The queen was always in such hurry for her hunt. He wondered why she tarried in granting Lady Blair the lands and pensions as Harold Waldorf's surviving child. Once the crown granted Blair her lands and castle, then he could be about his business. He would contract use of those lands and pay Lady Blair the rent, and his own livelihood would flourish. The sooner this was done, the sooner he could opt out of her life and allow her to her own devices.

If Blair Waldorf so chose to throw caution to the wind and immerse herself in the intrigue of the court, then he would watch from the sidelines in inaction. In truth, she was too skilled for him despite his claims. Though she did not know it she possessed some fair amount of duplicity in her body that even he—as versed as he was in machination—was still fooled by her.

Last night was the last straw. How close he had come to falling for her like the blasted courtiers who professed their love in poesie only to find their lyrics bandied about by the queen's ladies, read and sung in public while the silly men were off at war or service. How many men had been thrown from her majesty's court? How many men had had their heads severed for this foolish love? He had Blair Waldorf to thank for being so utterly scheming that he could save himself from being one of those foolish casualties.

He raised himself upon one elbow and looked down at Blair Waldorf still fast asleep. She looked every bit an angel. Chuck rose from the bed at once, then shucked off his tunic and put on his gear to ride and hunt. Out in the open, chasing down and felling wild animals set free for the queen, he would work out the frustration that had since settled on the backs of his shoulders.

On his way out the door, his gaze fell upon the neatly set board. He reached for a piece, then hesitated, noticed the sweet that was offered at the center. He glanced over towards his bed, at the sleeping Blair, who looked at peace and at home lying in abandon over his sheets. He took the sweet and bit until he could taste just a bit of the cream, then placed the remaining half back down for her. And then he picked up his pawn for the move.

The sweet coated the inside of his mouth. In his appreciation of the gesture he walked towards the bed and dropped a kiss on her slack mouth. For a moment he felt her kiss back in her sleep and when he looked down at her her eyes were closed and she had a smile on her lips.

Perhaps, he thought, there was still salvation. Perhaps instead of the sly calculation he so feared, she truly missed the marks.

Perhaps she had changed her mind, just a little.

But, he told himself, if she did not, and all she wanted still was a post with Elizabeth, then it would no great loss. He would have the use of the land still. It was what he had wanted in the first place, and had only been drawn to her web for the memory of an innocent child abandoned at the altar.

Clearly, Blair Waldorf was no longer that girl.

He saw it himself when she appeared like a ghost, so suddenly and so chillingly at the courtyard as the queen's party set out for the hunt. He had demanded to be informed of the webs she would weave, and she had once more appeared like a serpent in Eden, draping her arm around Essex's. Beside the queen, Chuck stiffened as he heard Elizabeth say to Lord Walsingham, "Who does Master Essex serve, pray tell, Francis? Is it his queen or this chit of a girl from Northumbria?"

His uncle had died under the axe, on Elizabeth's orders. His father had come close to the same. Indeed, the queen's very own cousin had been suspected, tried and executed all with the knowledge—if not the blessing, she insisted—of the queen.

Words such as the ones that fell from Elizabeth's lips still served to strike a chord of fear in his heart.

"I am certain Robert shows mere courtesy, madame," Chuck offered. He kneed his horse to turn him. "Let me call him to your side lest he forgets his task is to serve you. I shall see to Lady Blair's palfrey."

Elizabeth nodded her permission. Chuck turned to Eric and told him, "Keep here and I shall return at once." Chuck intently galloped back down the path. He met Blair and Essex on the way, and they were laughing at telling stories of the French court. He swallowed when Essex reached down to where Blair's habit had slipped up to bare her stocking. She lost no time in applying his lessons, and the sight of her using skills he had taught her somewhat offended his own indelicate sensibilities. Essex removed the hem from where it had stuck on the saddle, then allowed it to fall to cover her legs completely to her boots.

Once she saw him, Blair's face brightened and he could see the uncertainty in her eyes. He drew his attention away from her face and spoke to Essex instead, "The queen demands you take your place, Master of the Horse. You are not supposed to leave her side on a hunt for any reason—no matter how vital or," and he glanced at Blair with the intent now of hurting her, "how base."

Essex turned to Blair, then as courteous as Chuck was not, he said, "I thank you for the company, Lady Blair. It is always a pleasure."

And so Essex galloped back to the queen's side in the hunt, and Chuck glowered at her. Blair's smile faded and she turned to Chuck. "My lord," she said in a low voice, "I must admit I wronged you last night. Yet even then I know not why you are so angry. You have known all along that the end goal is seducing Essex." She shook her head. "And now, to call me base in front of another man."

"I did not call you base," he muttered.

"You wanted to hurt me and you have," Blair stated. "Is it so wrong to have ambition, Chuck? Surely you have it too, else you would be home and not here in court ensuring the queen's coffers never are depleted."

Chuck swallowed. "I am sorry for the word," he said. "It seems to have taken longer to forgive last night." She nodded, but did not look back at him. She rode at a steady pace only because she wanted to reach again the queen's party. "Blair, the end is not seducing Essex, lest you forget. The end is serving the queen."

"And the only way there is through the queen's favorite."

The dogs barked and howled, signifying their close proximity to the hart.

"So you would do everything, including joining a hunt that you know nothing of. Blair, these hunts are brutal and bloody." In her riding habit she looked more like a woman off to a pleasurable morning ride—more suitable to his own lands in Warwick racing across the green fields than in the forest when every soul else bore a bow and an arrow and she had neither weapon.

"The queen must remember my name. Supper was but another piece we have set in motion. The rest is strategy."

And he remembered Blair's weapon was far more deadly than the ones he bored to bring down the hart.

The queen certainly remembered her name. She was the reason that Essex had been derelict in his duty at the hunt. It was not a good way to be remembered by the queen.

Indeed the hunt was brutal. Once they arrived back to join Elizabeth, every call and horn and whistle meant riding hard towards the prey, surrounding and chasing it aground. Elizabeth watched as the party captured meat for the banquet. Blair sat atop her horse a few paces away from the queen as they ran aground a hart. Elizabeth called to him to inspect the game, and so Chuck jumped down to inspect the animal on foot. Eric ran after him with a dagger in case he needed to dress the hart before having the servants cart it back to the kitchens.

His squire yelled, "My lord, watch out!"

An arrow zipped over his head, towards Elizabeth. Quickly it was Essex who jumped to knock the queen out of its path. Chuck looked back and cried out as the arrow flew towards Blair, then grazed the nose of her palfrey before embedding on the tree trunk behind her. Blair squealed when her spooked horse neighed and rose on its hind legs.

"Easy, easy!" she said, clutching the horse's neck. The hurt horse whinnied and burst into a mad run. Blair's eyes widened and she clung to the horse in a desperate attempt to keep herself astride.

The queen's men gathered around Elizabeth, immediately converging to protect her from an assassin's threat. Walsingham called out his instructions and the entire council rushed like madmen to bring the queen back into the safety of the castle. Chuck grabbed the reins of his horse and chased the other way, after Blair.

"Hold!" he yelled after Blair.

She turned to him, fearful and panicked. "Chuck, help me!" Her eyes widened, and he could not tell why until the palfrey came to a screeching stop, and her arms around its neck loosened as he watched her body rose from the saddle and come flying off. Chuck cursed when she came to a shattering stop once her shoulder hit the trunk of a tree. He jumped off his horse and ran towards where she lay unmoving on the ground.

He turned her gently in his arms, carefully lest there was a broken bone. She lay limp and unconscious and he touched the broken skin on her scalp that bled heavily. Yet head wounds often bled more than needed, and his main goal was to wake her. He slapped at her cheeks, called her name. When she did not stir, he uttered every insult he could remember to shock her awake and into slapping him.

His hand crept to her ankle to determine if there was broken bone, and felt up over her dress to check the bones of her calves and legs. He pressed on her ribs and found none broken. Finally, she stirred in his arms and moaned deep and low in pain.

"Where is it, Blair?"

Her eyes fluttered open, yet she squeezed them closed again as she hissed, "My shoulder."

Chuck frowned in concern. His hand crept to the laces of her riding habit and he pulled free. The corset dress was undone and revealed a swollen, red shoulder that was oddly deformed. He touched the skin and it was hot. She cried out, and now lay sobbing.

"I need to set the bone," he told her calmly, feeling sorry at the pain. She nodded her head, then held with her uninjured hand to his own shoulder. He gathered her up and she buried her face in his doublet. Chuck counted in his head. He popped the shoulder back into its slot and she screamed and bit into his shoulder. When the bone was set, her cries were silenced and she grew heavy in his arms. He realized then that the pain had been kind to her and rendered her unconscious.

He heard the noise of the horse coming, and he held firmly to Blair. Whoever it was who had set forth the arrow intended for the queen was certainly still in the forest.

The rider came close. Chuck's bow and arrow still was on his horse, and he could not take it without leaving her. He sighed in relief when he recognized Essex ride into the clearing. Essex dropped to his feet, then regarded them with concern.

"How does she?"

"She will be fine," Chuck assured him. "The pain had thankfully taken her for a moment. Her shoulder will be sore but she will heal."

"I am shamed for handing a palfrey so skittish," Essex said as he walked towards the them. He knelt on the grass. "And even more shamed I had not been here to see to her."

"The queen first. Always," Chuck said. "Everyone knows this, even Blair."

And yet while the entire council converged into a protective wall around Elizabeth, he had raced the opposite way and after Blair's horse. "I have abandoned the queen in her time of need," he realized. For that, at the very least, he was sure to get sent to the Tower to mull over his decisions for a few weeks. "Nothing could have been more ignorant." Just as he had thought from the very first, she was the death of him, and he had thought of nothing save her those moments after his monarch had close to been assassinated.

"The queen has hundreds to see to her welfare," Essex assured him. "She would not miss one courtier."

When Essex's hand touched the bare skin of her injured shoulder, Chuck grasped his friend's wrist and pushed it intently away. In explanation, he offered, "There is pain still." He asked, "The queen?"

"She has sequestered herself in her chambers with Walsingham."

"The spymaster will be in charge of finding who is responsible for yet another attempt on the queen's life."

And so again the entire court would be embroiled in a dangerous intrigue. He had thought the attempts over, and relative peace to have descended upon England. Yet even more than the threats abroad, another threat from within, in the form of the queen's trusted Walsingham, would appear.

"And we are all suspect, once again," Essex declared.

Chuck shook his head. "Some of us more so than others." He rose, and with his arms under neath her shoulders and her knees he lifted her up with him that he may take her back to the living wing. He was certain that Dorota could care for her, and he would send for his own physicians to ascertain that there was no other injury save for the one he had just set right.

"We are on the same footing here, Chuck. Mayhap I am close to the queen, but I rode away from her and neglected my duties when I picked that palfrey for Lady Blair. The same way you abandoned your role as member of the queen's council when you chose to ride to your lady's rescue after the arrow was shot."

And inboth those reasons, Blair's name dangled like a low hanging fruit, so easy for Walsingham or Elizabeth to pick and be done with. "What say you?" Chuck demanded.

"I say it would do us well to beware what comes of Walsingham's investigation." And then, Essex nodded towards Blair. "You had best wake her. Though there be pain, you cannot return to the castle nor ride astride your hunting horse while she sleeps."

Chuck turned to the trees from the opposite direction and saw Eric ran towards him. "My lord, I have a cart," the squire told him.

~o~o~o~o~

She woke with a dry mouth, and she coughed until she felt the cup of water press against her lips. She opened her mouth and swallowed the water. Blair opened her eyes and felt the soreness of her shoulder but naught much else. When she saw the figure hovering above her she recognized Serena van der Woodsen regard her with a slight smile.

"How do you do, Lady Blair?" Blair's brows furrowed in confusion. She glanced around her and saw that she was in her own chambers. "You are safe. Do not fear. Your maid has gone for food for you. And I am hear to see you are healed."

"Why are you not attending to the queen?" Blair asked, her voice raspy still from lack of use.

Serena's voice fell. "The queen is still in closed meetings with her council. For the past day it had only been my lord Walsingham, but now she meets them all." Serena sat up on the side of Blair's bed. "We have been bored and twiddling our thumbs with nothing to do."

"Share stories of the court to me," she requested. Mayhap the story would mention Chuck Bass. She had last remembered him taking her back to her chambers along with Essex. In the delirium brought by the drink they gave her for her pain, she thought she saw in the middle of the night that Walsingham had sent men to take him for an audience with the spymaster.

"The council has made a pact," Serena shared. "It was the Earl of Leicester's proposal—a Bond of Association." Leicester, Essex's stepfather, and Elizabeth's first favorite, had returned to court due to the attempt on the queen's life. Ever faithful, ever present, Robert Dudley once more became the queen's champion on the trying time. "It states that the council must murder any assassin and claimant to the throne for whom the attempt on the queen's life was made."

"All the members of the council signed this?"

Serena nodded. "Not signing a bond such as that would be tantamount to an admission of guilt," Serena told her.

"Yet having such a bond heightens their suspicions of each other. They shall murder each other yet," Blair said anxiously. The door opened, and she sat up at once. When she saw her maid step inside with a plate of food, she said expectantly, "Well?"

Dorota placed the food down and clasped her hands together. "My lady! Oh, my lady, you are well!"

Blair accepted her maid's affection and embraced back when Dorota wrapped her arms around her. "Dorota, tell me. What of Chuck?" Until she heard otherwise, she would imagine him swinging from the gallows. Or drawn and quartered—that was much more of a noble execution.

Serena patted Blair's hand. "Warwick is hale. The council still meets closed doors."

Blair gently pushed Dorota away. Her racing heart slowed. The palpable fear was that of one you felt for a person you owed. "Walsingham did not lock him in the Tower?" Serena shook her head. "And he has not come back since the night that the guards took him. Tis unacceptable, Dorota!"

Serena's eyes widened. Dorota stepped over to the lady-in-waiting and then waved her hands before her. "Lady Serena, you should return to your chambers. My lady is in pain and knows not what she says."

"I should," Serena stammered. "I will return on the morrow, Blair, if the queen has yet no need of us."

Serena left the room, and Dorota placed Blair's food before her on a tray. Blair took the food and regarded them as if one would jump at her. She wondered what drug the royal physician gave her, but she was flushed and worried still. At the knock on the door, she glanced up and waited with bated breath.

Mayhap Chuck Bass had finally found his way back to see if she were still alive. Mayhap Walsingham had cleared him of charges, and he was free to wander around the court.

Dorota opened the door and received a small parcel instead. The maid returned to her bed and handed her the box and a note. Dorota's eyes were wide when she said, "It is from the queen, my lady."

Blair took the card with the scripted letters ER on the cover. She tremulously opened the note and read the contents. Afterwards, she picked up the box and took off the lid.

Dorota read the queen's card aloud, "Lady Blair Waldorf. We have been requested to take a place with the queen's ladies. Elizabeth." Dorota squealed in joy. "My lady! Oh my lady!"

Her blood thundered in her ears. Blair gasped when she saw the diamond studded necklace resting within. "Diamonds and white gold," she whispered.

"From the queen, my lady? How generous."

"No," Blair answered. She took the note from the box. "Congratulations. Something as beautiful deserves to be on someone worthy of its beauty." Blair took the necklace from the box and lifted it up. She clasped the necklace at her nape and touched the cool metal against her skin. "Chuck Bass."

She was a lady-in-waiting.

Finally.

That night, as Dorota lay asleep on her pallet, Blair made her way out of her chambers and walked with a single candle all the way to Chuck's. When she pushed open the door, she found him standing there, leaning against the pillar.

"You did not come to me," she said.

"I had only just returned, and I am under close watch by Walsingham."

"So he knows that I am here. He has eyes everywhere."

Chuck smiled. "No one would ever suspect you of anything afoul, my lady. You are an angel descended upon this court."

"Is it so?" she said softly. She walked towards him, fingering the lovely necklace he had so generously given her. "I am wearing your treasure."

He nodded his appreciation. "It suits you."

"You have chosen well."

"I did not choose it. It came to me. Like you came to me." Her lips curved. "Another lesson tonight," he offered. Yet she already had what she desired, and they both knew it.

And still, she nodded her acceptance. "Another lesson." And this time they would both be clear that whatever he taught her she need not use on Essex. For whatever Elizabeth's reasons, she had handed Blair the post that Blair had most wanted for so long.

"I would have a taste of your mouth." His lips urged her to part her own. He placed his mouth over hers and then his tongue penetrated to touch the recesses, slid by her tongue. He held her gaze until he looked down, then pressed tender kisses on her skin. His hands settled on her hips. "I had known since long ago when I had stumbled upon you bathing in the pool—you have bewitched me."

She pressed kisses back, and wrapped her arms around him. She rose on the tips of her toes. He turned them around so that it was she that pressed back against the pillar. She felt his hardness against her stomach and she froze. "Mayhap we have gone too far, my lord," she gasped.

"Have we?" he panted. His fingertips drew a slow, wispy line from her cheek to her jawline. Her lips parted at the sensation. His thumb trailed to the hollow of her throat. "You wished for lessons from a master. I am giving you what you asked."

And now she served the Virgin Queen. She had worked long and hard, too long and too hard to end up thrown from the court by a scandal. She squeezed her eyes shut, kept her legs firmly closed to dull the throbbing sensation he had aroused in her. "I should leave."

"You are the one who came to me."

"I should not have."

"Do you think to play me again, Lady Blair?"

"The game ends now." She pushed away, then said, "I am to plan for the morrow, to prepare my gown, to think of what I should say first to the queen."

"Sleep," he said huskily. He looked about ready to oppose, but he eyed her and her upthrust chin then nodded. "Rest your body, my lady. There is time enough to plot tomorrow."

Blair nodded. She opened the door, then turned to Chuck. "I thank you, my lord, for all the lessons you have taught me. I shall hold them dear to my heart." She swallowed. "I am a courtier now, with much to occupy my time. Our lessons cease tonight."

"You have more to learn of court, and I swore I was your man. Why do you think the queen so suddenly needs your service?" he challenged her.

"Then I shall learn on my own, Chuck." She walked back quickly to him, then kissed the corner of his lips. His mouth puckered to kiss back. Before he caught her arm, she had exited the room and closed the door behind her.

tbc


	8. Part 7

**Part 7**

It was familiar, because for many nights as a child she had watched the same dance and fantasized. One day she would be one of the wonderful creatures flung up high, kicking up a dainty shoe and flinging up heavy gowns for a teasing view of a stocking and a thigh. One day she would place her hands upon her lord's shoulders and throw her head back with a laugh. For a brief second she would be higher than them all, up in the air, and the rest of the room would look up to see her.

"Do you know it?"

Blair started, then whirled around with a hand on her throat. "You gave me a fright, my lord."

At her words, at her flush, his lips curved in amusement that mocked her she thought. Her lips thinned. She glanced to her side, then the other. Serena waved at her from where she stood with her guardian. Since the small hours when she came into service with the queen, she oft saw Lord Walsingham stay within the vicinity of the queen. In as much as he stayed, often Blair would spy Serena in discussion with her guardian. And always, Walsingham had much to say, gave his ward instructions and Blair supposed it was how Lady Serena became the foremost and the best of the queen's ladies.

For not the first time in the night she envied Serena her guardian's presence in court. Why, if Bartholomew Bass had not been so stubbornly opposed to the idea of service to the queen, to waiting hand and foot, Blair supposed Bartholomew would take her aside as well every time he was able and share his wise words.

Although to think of it fairly Blair wondered if Bartholomew Bass would even have much to offer by way of becoming the best lady-in-waiting she could be. Perhaps he could share to her some secrets he had gathered over his many many many years and give her knowledge of life when Elizabeth was young yet. But all of those she had gathered from the tales of the bards, and she had learned even the seeds of the Tudor lines as sung in Elizabeth's court. Yet still, it would have been lovely to have her guardian to run to the way Serena ran to hers.

It would have been lovelier still if her father were alive and could take her through the paces of court firsthand. Or her mother—certainly her mother could well teach her the very things that she feared in court. Even now she could not dance the courtly dances, and from her short stay she had seen the queen dance countless times a day, call for her ladies and her courtiers to entertain her with a galliard or a volta once she was breathless.

Chuck repeated to her. "Do you know this dance?"

"I know this dance," she answered. "My mother took me to three summers in Queen Catarina's court. They dance this each night."

"You must have been very young," Chuck told her.

"All of eight years," she said proudly. "And still I snuck from Dorota's watch and witnessed the lords and ladies in their dance."

He nodded, then assessed her. "You realize, my lady, that when the queen demands you dance, you cannot tell this tale." And then he chuckled, "You cannot tell a tale and satisfy her craving. She wants to see you vault into the air and remind her what it was like to be young and free and beautiful."

She pursed her lips. "What would you have me do?" she said in a loud whisper. "Pretend that I can dance courtly dances I have only seen now for the first since my childhood days as a French courtier?"

Chuck gave a soft laugh. "I did not suggest a word of it," he said. He took the drink she held in her hand, then told her. "But a second glass of wine shall not help your cause. The dance has far too many spins and twirls for your head to be so addled."

Blair's gaze followed the sweet wine as he took it out of her reach. He swallowed the contents of her cup. "Addled or nay, I have no hope." Truly when she thought to be Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting she had not for once considered this as requisite.

"You might consider an option."

"What option?"

"I stand before you as well-versed in the courtly dances as any you shall find this side of the ocean." He leaned towards her, then confided, "Certainly much better than Essex."

For a brief moment—a very brief one she hoped he did not notice—she brightened at the prospect of learning from him, of standing next to him, of touching him and pressing against him as intimately as the men and women who danced the dance that was almost banned from Catholic France.

No.

Every time she came close to him he warped her mind, and her head slowed. Her guardian may not be there, but she remembered Bartholomew's lessons well. Perhaps the old man was prophetic, and had known she would face his son. Of all the people in the world, Bartholomew knew how marvelously strong-willed was his son.

"Always," the old man had told her, "keep the end in mind, Blair. At times you may think it easier to stray."

It was then that Bartholomew told her the tale of being caught in the Channel's current, once when his ship was preyed upon by the Spanish fleet. He and her father fought against the current until they were exhausted, and Bartholomew had thought it easier for a second to rest his arms, allow the current to take him. But Harold had told him, as they sunk and rose and sunk and rose again, to fight the current for a moment of rest was a slumber forever.

The dance stopped as the last stings of the music quieted.

She was almost at the top of the world. There was no reason to stray from her path. She would not allow the quiet temptation of a dance in Chuck Bass' arms lead her away from her destiny.

"I thank you, my lord. But certainly I can learn a dance with no imposition to you."

Another word from him, another whisper, and she would find herself on her way behind the curtains, moving her body to his words. She was much too close to the queen's hand now. Blair stepped forward and away from him. She approached the queen and curtsied before her majesty.

"Lady Blair Waldorf," the queen pronounced.

"Aye, your majesty."

"Daughter of Lord Harold Waldorf."

She should have expected it. Yet the sound of her father's name, spoken aloud once more as if it mattered again, caused her throat to tighten, so as discourteous as it was she merely nodded at her monarch.

"Aye. Lady Blair is daughter to Harold and Eleanor Waldorf, your majesty," she heard Chuck Bass say from the far corner where she had left him.

"We are deeply saddened," the queen said. Blair wondered if he meant her father, or her mother, or whether the queen knew anything at all of the sad fate that had befallen the marriage of her parents. "Saddened even more that you have been hurt by the incident at the hunt." The queen paused, glanced at a place behind her, and Blair knew she was not allowed to look and turn her back on the queen. "The earl of Essex is shamed of his error in giving you an untrained palfrey so easily spooked by an arrow." To the man at some point behind her, which Blair assumed was Essex, the queen said, "What idiocy possessed you, Robert, to hand a girl on her first hunt a yet unbroken palfrey?"

"Your majesty—" Blair began, then silenced herself at a gasp behind her. The queen was not done speaking and to speak was an affront.

The queen shook her head. "Truly, Robert, such idiotic mistake. I hope you shall not make the same with me." Elizabeth scoffed, to Blair's horror, and completely humiliated her favorite in the face of the court. "Master of the Horse. If you should continue with this lack of thought, I might as well arrange the preparation of my tomb."

Blair lowered her gaze to the floor. To have such words said by the queen herself was a complete annihilation of Essex's reputation. She had been part of the ruin of Essex's courtly career, she feared.

"Go on, Lady Blair. Return and make acquaintances of my ladies. You have a place with them and accept the court's apologies. Robert has asked for a place for you in reparation for his near fatal stupidity."

She gasped, and forgot her manners for a while. Blair turned to look at the earl of Essex who seemed not ashamed despite the queen's ceaseless berating and name calling. Essex instead bowed his thanks to the queen. Blair caught the earl's eye and she smiled gratefully at him.

Blair rose and hurried away towards where Serena extended a hand towards her. Her eyes widened at Chuck to show her surprise. Even without the seduction, she had managed to have Essex talk the queen into giving her a place. Yet even in this mad celebration that rang in her heart, Chuck Bass could not manage a smile in return. Instead, he turned from her and Blair saw his frown as he looked at the queen herself.

"Could it be that Chuck Bass is so enamored of you he is displeased with Essex finagling your way into the queen's privy chambers?" Serena whispered into Blair's ear.

"How could Chuck Bass be enamored of anyone, least of all me?" Blair retorted. "We were playing at a game—a game he agreed to play." Blair shook her head. "And I tell you, Serena, he is not such a pleasant playmate."

The queen ordered lightly for a change in music. Serena clasped her hands together and said at once, "It's time to dance, Blair!"

"I shan't," she said.

Serena's brows drew together in confusion. She rushed at once to her guardian, who spoke low into her ear. Blair watched as Serena flitted her way across the room and approached the ambassadors to the court. Blair watched in marvel as her new friend drew one of the dignitaries towards the center of the room and performed a cinq pas. Within a few more beats she had the man dancing with her.

"And you, my lady?" Sir Hatton asked.

"I know not the steps," Blair confessed to the Chancellor. Blair's eyes raised and she saw Elizabeth laughing as Elizabeth leapt with Essex in the lead. With the last beat, she jumped up high and landed in perfect place. The queen looked around her and assessed her ladies dancing on the floor with her. Her gaze rested upon Blair as she counted breathlessly in front of Essex, seeming to have forgiven the courtier she had all but obliterated in her court.

Whatever was Essex's 'stupidity' as Elizabeth had phrased it was now forgotten with the entire court seeing how the queen danced with the young man.

Sir Hatton nodded. "The queen loves to watch her ladies dance, Lady Blair."

"I know," she whispred, realizing with a sinking feeling that in this she had no choice.

Chuck stood by the sidelines, and Blair's heart skipped when a blonde woman drew close to him and placed a hand on his arm. When the woman walked away, she went up to him and stood a yard away.

She did not turn to him, nor say a word. She felt his gaze, and so she gave in and glanced at him. He observed her stance with a small curve to his lips that hinted at the arrogance of his knowledge that he had defeated her.

"You cannot ask me why I have still come."

"I know why you have come," he answered.

At his words, she sighed. The music started up again, and he offered her his hand. Very carefully, she placed her hand on his palm and shivered at the touch. His hand wrapped around hers and he pulled her towards him, close, intimate, at the center of the floor.

"You must not shame me," she said, her voice trembling, "that I know nothing of this."

And they were so scandalously close that she heard whispers of lavolta within the queen's galliard. Even the French did not use the step before royalty. The intimacy of the position gave him an excuse to ask quietly, "Have I ever shamed you in our lessons?"

"This is the first time you would teach me before the world," she said in response. The beat was slow, and her feet lifted, dragging the toes of her sandals along the floor as he turned them around a semi circle. She gasped at the abrupt stop. She clutched tightly at his arms. "I cannot trust you would not let me fall."

"What foolishness," he said softly. Abruptly he turned the opposite way and then rested his hands on his hips. The beat grew faster, and his grin widened. "Prepare yourself." A count, and she held her breath and found herself lifted up into the air. She gasped, and midair she looked around her. And she was high, up in the air, higher than them all that she dwarfed Chuck Bass, and Serena van der Woodsen. He flung her higher even than the conservative leap of the queen of England. She could not help the joyous cry that few from her lips.

Finally, she settled back onto the earth and into Chuck Bass' arms. She gasped open mouthed as she caught her breath. "My heavens, that was marvelous!"

"Do you trust me now?"

And her blood pumped in her veins so madly and quickly that she shook her head in response. "I had thought myself close to shattering my skull each moment of it!" she answered. But she laughed, and demanded with glee, "Another time!"

He chuckled, then nodded. For her sake, he counted aloud with the beat. "Six counts," he instructed her. He looked down at their feet, then kicked gently at her ankle so that she would move her left foot forward.

She gasped, and in her surprise she move her leg more than she should have, brushing her hip against his crotch.

His voice was tight when he said, "Six counts. Kick right, left, right, left. One count pause," he told her. "And then jump."

It was how Serena danced, and she had seen it. She could do it in a heartbeat. "Let's begin."

"And then the volta," he told her quietly.

Pressed close, intimate, can be wholly skipped if she observed correctly. But they were already pressed so close and it felt wonderful to be so different and daring in court. She nodded. "Lead the spinning, my lord," she answered.

And she spun. She leapt and jumped and danced her way night after night in the Windsor banquets, and spent her early mornings where she swore she would not be. But Chuck Bass offered her an advantage she could not deny, offered her his services without demand for service or payment of his own. In the day Serena handed her the queen's favorite book to hand to Elizabeth after her morning ablutions, and picked the most fitting of the crown jewels to offer the queen after she had donned her wardrobe. And in the night, she spent marvelous nights dancing tirelessly, displaying her newfound skills to the queen and the court.

She ever only danced with Chuck Bass lest the court find her ill-prepared for a dance without her tutor, and Blair had bribed the earl with sweets that he may not danced with any other of the queen's ladies lest Elizabeth wish to see her dance when he was taken.

She had uttered her secret to her one friend in court, and Serena had for a moment seemed displeased at the prospect. "A man wants," she told Blair. "Chuck Bass is sweet on you, but he cannot not have a reason for it all."

But Blair had asked him, and he had told her he wished her success in court. At the reason Serena had scoffed and educated her friend. "He lies," she told him. "I know not what he wants, but he wants something more."

And Blair had not pressed her for more, because Serena had been called by her guardian and soon she made her way to the same ambassador and led him to the garden.

"The arrangement is brilliant. It shall work for us in Greenwich, shall it not?" she had prompted from the earl as the court made its way to Greenwich Palace for New Year's Day.

"Certainly," he answered. And then, from nowhere he asked her, "Has Cecil or Walsingham called for you?" It was not the first time he inquired, but still she shook her head. "Are you certain?" Chuck asked her. "They mentioned nothing of your father?"

"They have barely spoken a word to me save a greeting in the mornings," Blair informed Chuck. She remembered Serena's caution, and gently prodded, "What is it they would have to say to me, Chuck?"

He denied knowledge, and once more her heart grew heavy as he answered, "Nothing. I thought only to ask."

In the privy chambers as the ladies entered the council stood at the conclusion of their conference. Blair nodded at Chuck her acknowledgment, then smiled as Essex passed and tipped a hat to her. Serena curtsied her farewell to her guardian. At once two of Elizabeth's ladies worked to loosen the queen's corset. Blair looked through the stacks of Elizabeth's favorite poesies.

"When has dear Bartholomew writ out your marriage to Beaton?" the queen asked.

Blair almost did not look up save for the mention of her guardian's name. Beaton—Oh. That gentleman. Blair quickly responded, "I had rethought my commitment to Lord Beaton, your majesty, and I find I am not prepared for marriage."

"And why not?" Elizabeth asked. "Marcus Beaton will be a duke one of these days." It was only then that Blair noticed the tightness in the queen's voice as she continued, "Have your eyes settled on another of my courtiers?"

And at once she thought of Chuck. "No, your majesty! I dare not think of marriage now being so new to your service. There is nothing more I dream of."

The fervent, sincere exclamation pacified her monarch. Elizabeth cautioned Blair, "This court, as grand and wonderful as you see it, can be a lie, Blair. You may see many things that are not what they seem." Elizabeth turned, then eyed her ladies as they gathered around in rapt fascination at the exchange between the queen and Blair. "Every one of these pretty ladies have a secret they keep from me," Elizabeth pronounced. Many parted their lips in protest while Serena merely waited for the queen to say more. The queen turned to Blair, then shook her head. "Do you keep a secret from me, my dear child?"

Blair gasped. She picked up Elizabeth's hand and vowed, "I do not and I shall not ever."

And then queen smiled, drew close, and demanded, "Swear it upon your grave."

Without hesitation, Blair responded, "I swear it!"

The festivities began for the New Year's, and the court was full to bursting at the noble families that gathered. The banquet tables were heavy with food from far and wide, and Greenwich was crowded with entertainers and merchants, lords and ladies. Blair rose early and with Dorota's help she brushed her hair into a shiny cascade down her back. Dorota took locks of her hair and braided a crown atop her head. With pieces of gems, Dorota threaded her hair until parts of it sparkled.

"Happy New Year's, Dorota," she greeted her maid, then handed her a scarf of silken that they both knew Dorota would never be able to wear to court due to the queen's prohibitions. "When the court takes its rest, you may wear it every day in Northumbria," Blair offered.

Dorota crowed with laughter at the image. "The duke's face, can you imagine, when I emerge bearing a tray of your stew with silk wrapped around my frock?"

She left her room with a smile on her face. She worked her way through the crowd and towards the queen's wing when she saw Essex waiting for her by the corridor. He handed her a loosely tied pack, and Blair eagerly accepted the gift and drew out a black genet fur cape.

"My lord, this is generous!"

"Another attempt at bribery, so you will forget my idiotic mistake," he told her.

"It was an accident, Robert," she answered. Blair needed to hand it back, because it was far too generous for the sin he believed he made. But it was so beautiful that she slid her arms into the thick warm sleeves and smiled. "But you are to give a gift to the queen, not me."

Essex nodded at her. "And I will. The fur I have for her will put yours to shame."

The words made her feel better, and the cape was warm and lovely. Blair accepted the gift and went on her way to the banquet hall. The small delay to the queen's side bought her her lovely new cape, and Blair gave the queen a big smile as she went up and curtsied.

"I did not allow a nameless chit to take a place with my ladies for her to slack and arrive too late to serve me," Elizabeth said coldly.

Blair froze. A wave of cold washed over her, coldness from which even her fur cape could not protect her. "Your majesty, please accept my apologies."

From the same door she had walked in from, Essex made his way to the privy council. Blair closed her eyes when she realized that Chuck Bass was there, and he could see each moment.

"Take off your cape," the queen demanded.

"Why?" came the booming voice of the earl of Essex.

Blair's cheeks grew heated now. She quickly discarded the cape and folded it.

The queen scowled at her courtier, then pronounced, "It is warm in my court. I have enough gold for firewood. And a genet cape, for a nameless ward of the kingdom?"

Chuck's voice was calm when he reasoned, "Begging your pardon, your majesty. Lady Blair was a ward of the kingdom until you sold her wardship to my father. She is a ward of Northumberland now, and can wear the cape if she is cold."

Blair listened to the words around her, and found it odd and ill-fitting that two men should speak for her when it was she to whom the queen spoke. It was shameful to her father, shameful to her mother, shameful to Bartholomew and most of all to herself.

She raised her head and faced the queen.

And the very sight of Gloriana could have melted steel. Blair said, "I fear I am coming down ill, your majesty. If you will excuse me tonight."

Elizabeth gave a curt nod. Blair lowered her head and backed away from the room. The door closed behind her, and Blair leaned back against the wall and crumpled down to sit on the floor. For the longest time, she stared out into the thick blackness of the courtyard, seeing not five inches before her despite the roaring torch fires.

The door opened and she felt his presence before she saw or heard him.

She said softly, "What happened?"

He sighed, then sat beside her on the floor. "You forgot your name," he told her.

"Blair Waldorf," she said easily.

"The next time that the queen tears you apart, you remember that name." He cleared his throat. "You do not need to challenge her. We will all lose. Only Robert can do it and one day it shall be the death of him. If you insist on staying here, Blair, you need a thicker skin and you need to remember who you are."

She sniffled, then nodded. Chuck rose to his feet, then offered her his hand. He pulled her up to her feet then towards the banquet hall. Blair stopped and tugged at his hand.

"Better now for her to see you survived her than tomorrow and admitting defeat now."

She took a deep breath.

"Hold onto my arm and we will walk inside. I am your escort."

It was the galliard once again, and he expected to throw her up high in the air with her full trust in him. Blair drew a breath, then nodded.

Chuck opened the door and walked into the court with Blair. Blair froze when the queen's narrowed gaze fell on them. The queen met Chuck's eyes.

"Curtsy," he instructed her.

Blair did the same, and beside her Chuck fell into a deep bow.

tbc


	9. Part 8

**AN: **Hmmm… so you're giving me hits but just a handful of reviews. Either the nine people reviewing are reading several times, or people are not leaving reviews. Oh well… Such is the fate of historical fics, and I knew it full well before I began this one.

Also, for those who had asked for MMB and DPoM, allow me some time to write out the rest of the plot first before I pick it up again so the parts will not come in spurts that are few and far between.

At the moment, this is my baby because the plot has been pretty much locked. I hope you'd already picked up in previous chapters what this part reveals.

**Part 8**

Her heart tripped upon entering the queen's chambers. For a long moment the night before she had decided that morning would find her in a carriage bound for Northumbria, to wallow in the cold moist air of the moors, to curse at her idiocy while riding out her mare into an exhausted heap. But Chuck Bass had found her, taken her hand and walked back into court with her. He had stood by her side as the queen glared at her presence, and soon enough just like the poisonous fluid they used to measure heat the queen's flared temper fell into calm.

So Blair took her first morning of service with the queen, arriving second only to Serena to the chambers. The queen was yet asleep in her bedroom and Serena took the queen's voluminous gown from the mistress who took it from the Master of the Wardrobe. At Blair's arrival, Serena smiled in welcome.

"Would you choose shoes for the queen?" she asked.

Blair turned around and saw three maids with two pairs of shoes each in hand. She turned to glance at the clothes that Serena held, and noted the texture and the color before reaching for the golden selection.

Within moments the queen's ladies came and each took to her place with no instructions. The gentle conversation, the quiet laughter, filled the air. Blair marveled at the change—so many women when she had only Dorota for the longest time in her life. They spoke of clothes, of their dreams from the night before, even of a secret kiss shared by the hallways as they came.

"Secrets kisses," one of them said. It was Lady Amalia, orphaned daughter of the queen's old friend—a miss that she had met when she was in Hatfield and was still simple Bess. "Secret kisses are the very best," she claimed.

The door opened and Chuck Bass, Francis Walsingham and Lord Burghley stepped inside. Her eyes flew to Chuck's and she felt a flush of guilt build up from her throat to her face. At that, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips curved with his confusion. Chuck shook his head, as if to ask.

Amalia took to a small basin and waited for a servant to pour water, then looked up at Blair. "Do you not agree?" she said with barely restrained giggles.

Blair's lips parted, and once more she glanced at Chuck. She walked over to Amalia and palmed a handful of rose petals, then allowed them to fall into the basin of water. "I have no opinion of the matter," Blair stated.

Blair determined how closely the ladies had become to Chuck Bass, by the privy council's mere presence and Chuck's free question. "What is this topic that Lady Blair has no opinion? That shall be a first."

Amalia moved to speak, but Blair silenced her with a hand. "It is the talk of women, my lord."

And so Chuck Bass nodded, to Blair's relief, without knowing what had so flustered her. Cecil drew close to the guard by the queen's door, then returned to the men. Soon enough, the three went towards the exit. Blair watched as Walsingham drew away from the other two and went to Serena with a folded missive. Upon receipt, Serena curtsied to her guardian, then left the room.

Blair eyed the rest of the ladies who remained. She settled into a cushioned seat and wondered why Elizabeth had yet not emerged. Around her the rest of the ladies sat and took out embroidery, or a small canvass to sketch a picture. One pulled her book of Common Prayer and bowed her head, while another a small book of poetry. Why, this was where the waiting came for lady-in-waiting.

Finally, about an hour later, the heavy doors to the queen's sleeping quarters opened and her eyes widened when Lord Essex stepped outside, running his fingers through his hair. She turned around her at the ladies, but everyone merely returned to her task after the sight of Robert Deveraux. Amalia hid a smile, but Blair spied it and she knew she was not the only one who noticed. The earl seemed surprised to see her there, then gave her a grin when he remembered that he had won her a place.

"The council has come and gone," she choked out. Afterwards she asked herself why she had said the words when she had not been asked. "Mayhap to gather elsewhere."

He tipped his hat to her, then rushed out of the queen's chambers.

Elizabeth emerged from her bedrooms, and to Blair's eyes, with the sunlight streaming from the windows, the queen appeared near divine. The lines on her face were hidden, and the red of her hair blazed in glory. It was the first she had seen the queen in white robes. Blair swallowed her awe.

The queen smiled at her new lady-in-waiting, to Blair utter surprise. The queen's ringed hand reached towards her, and Blair reached for it and kissed her fingers.

"You are not mad at me, are you, child?"

At once, without stopping, she breathed, "What right have I to bear malice upon my queen?"

It was then that the doors opened once more to admit the council who had earlier left. The queen's ladies rose to robe the queen in a resplendent silk cloth threaded with gold and silver. Blair wondered why the gentlemen would not leave, but it was Essex who took them into the privy chamber.

Yet instead of addressing her council, who had been waiting some, Elizabeth returned to her conversation with Blair.

"Come, child. The queen is old and thus can easily be of foul temper. It is my curse, I fear," Elizabeth claimed. "My temper is as hot as my hair." And then, she patted Blair's cheeks. "Tell me, my dear, what I can do to welcome you into my service?"

"Your majesty, nothing save humbling sitting with you, keeping you company, would please me."

Elizabeth considered the words. "Then you are not the girl I thought you to be."

And it was Chuck who offered next, "Lady Blair has a fine taste for headdresses, majesty. You will find none who can select with as much sophistication as your new lady."

At Chuck's interruption, Elizabeth glared. "Chuck Bass, you will cease to speak for the girl. How little do you think of her, that you would be her tongue?" And even then, she turned to Blair. "Is that so?" Elizabeth said curiously. "And you will not beggar England as you choose?"

Even without looking Blair knew Chuck wished to speak. But the queen was right. She was intelligent enough to have a place with the queen, by forging ahead into court without connections, merely a duke's son who had no influence in court. Her closest draw to the queen was that Bartholomew was her guardian, and the man could not even support her bid. "I have a fine head on my shoulders."

"Ah. A girl after my own heart. Tell me, Lady Blair, do you value your head's opinions before your heart's desires?"

She answered then, but kept her eyes away from his, "In truth, majesty, I humbly confess. Oft times my mind works and spins a myriad schemes so many I never know what and if my heart desires."

"Is that so?" the queen asked.

"Lovely," Essex said.

Elizabeth drew a sharp breath, then eyed Walsingham. Her voice was chill enough to draw a shiver. "Francis," she bit out. And Walsingham gave a curt nod.

~o~o~o~o~

Serena rushed across the lawn, gathering her skirt and running towards the chapel. The maids and pages up and about stopped and watched her flight, and Serena wondered if it would have been easier had she grabbed one of the palfreys being brushed down and she had gone charging across the lawn. Her guardian would not appreciate it, most definitely. And if she displeased Walsingham right at the tail of what had happened with Penelope, then there certainly would not be an end to it all.

When she drew closer to the chapel, she stopped, slowed. Serena caught herself outside and caught her breath, fixing what hair had come loose and ensuring that her gown was well in place. She entered the shade of the chapel and made her way towards the man sitting at the last pew.

When she sat, the man looked up in surprise. "Lady Serena," he said quietly. "What are you doing here?"

Serena smiled, her eyes remaining on the Christ on the cross and the shiny statuette of the Virgin Mary lit in front. "Ambassador," she returned the question, "what are you doing here?"

He swallowed, and when she turned to him he was all eyes and lips to her. She turned her gaze back to the icons. As much as she could she needed to keep her eyes away from his face. This was where all Penelope's problems began, and in turn, Walsingham's. Penelope had liked courtiers far too well and often and in their situation, Serena knew it was a dangerous distraction.

Carter Baizen stood abruptly from the pew and strode towards the indulgences. He took a candle in his hand and lit it. He hung his head. Serena took a candle of her own and did the same, then sidled beside him. She said softly, so no one else would hear, "A Romanian ambassador in a Catholic chapel."

"I thought your queen did not persecute religion," he said.

"Mr Baizen," Serena said quietly. "Come with me."

Carter straightened, then frowned at Serena.

"I know you have a rose for me," she said carefully, intentionally.

Carter slowly nodded. "I have a rose for you," he answered. Carter looked around and found them alone in the chapel. Serena drew the folded paper and handed it to him. He opened it, then finally placed it in a hidden lining of his doublet. Carter unfastened the top of his trousers. Serena's brows shot up. He drew out a missive from within, then handed it to her.

Serena plucked it from his hand and made a show of sniffing it. "It stinks, ambassador," she said playfully.

"What foul spirit told you to smell it?"

Serena chuckled. She never felt as free as any time she was with another spy. And when the spymaster Walsingham installed a sleeper, it took months or years to complete each assignment. She knew she had to return to the queen before she was missed, but instead she thought to feel minutes more. "How long?" she asked. "How long have you been who you are today?"

Carter paused, then decided, "Far too long I cannot count. And you?"

"One year today," she answered.

"You are a child," he told her.

"Am I?" Serena shrugged. "I long for a challenge. There is nothing that makes my blood pump in a task such as this." She shared with Carter. "Nothing to make my heart race."

Carter chuckled, then closed his hand around her elbow. "Tell Walsingham there is no charge to this service for his spy." He pulled her towards him, and latched his mouth onto hers. Serena's eyes shot open and she knew exactly where they were, in front of the icons she did not worship and still it felt like a sin. The blazing heat of the flames behind her was like hell. Finally, he released her and Serena wiped her mouth with her palm. "And now, it seems, this assignment is done," he pronounced. "Perhaps we shall run into one another on another task," he said.

Serena's eyes narrowed. "Tell Lady Rose," she said, referring to the French spymaster that rivaled only Walsingham, "that she will most certainly pay for the stolen kiss."

She heard him chuckling still even as she emerged from the chapel.

~o~o~o~o~

She was young, the youngest of all that lined Lady Rose's wide ballroom. Around her the women were tall and beautiful, spoke languages she had not even heard of as easily as they spoke English and French. With the little that her father and mother made as she grew up, Jenny was fortunate she could even read her mother tongue.

But Lady Rose had picked her out to be one of these, and offered a generous stipend to learn from her. For an entire summer she had trained—danced with gentlemen too beautiful they hurt her eyes, tasted food so delicious her tongue burnt, wore clothes so luxurious her skin itched.

"You have potential," Lady Rose told her.

"Potential, my lady?"

And the older woman nodded, smiling her secret smile, and vanished into her chapel for hours on end. Once there was a time when Lady Rose stayed within the chapel for near on five hours. The time for meals had come and gone, and still Lady Rose remained within. So Jenny had asked if they should go inside and everyone else had warned her away.

"Lady Rose dislikes to be disturbed from her prayers," one cautioned her.

"Do not go inside. She will step outside when she is good and ready."

"Jenny, you are a fool!" another called to her as Jenny pushed her way inside the chapel.

It was dark, and cool. Jenny had never been inside Lady Rose's chapel, but it seemed the same as her own and she was not fearful. She went up to Lady Rose and knelt beside her, then listened. Jenny's eyes fell to the beads that quickly moved as Lady Rose muttered a litany of saints and prayers.

"My lady," she said gently, placing a hand on Lady Rose's arm.

But Lady Rose's eyes were closed, and Jenny noticed the way her cheeks shone when it reflected a tear track. "—Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death." A breath, another bead. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you—"

And so Jenny rose and sat on a pew, waited with a rumbling stomach until finally, with a heaving breath, Lady Rose stood. As she did, before her gown covered them, Jenny saw the raw, blistered redness of the older woman's knees. At the sight of Jenny still in the chapel, Lady Rose wiped quickly at her tears.

"You waited," she said in surprise.

Jenny nodded, then asked, "Why do you cry when you pray, my lady? Do you not rejoice when you pray to your God?"

At that, Lady Rose shook her head with a smile. "Your God and my God are the same, my dear. It is tradition that calls you different from me."

Jenny shrugged. It was different, whatever Lady Rose chose to believe. Had they been in another decade, Jenny knew she would be burning while Lady Rose prayed for her soul and added wood to the pile. "If that is so, why do you cry, my lady? I do not cry when I face my God."

Lady Rose, and Jenny herself, heard the thunderous growl that drew from Jenny's abdomen. The older woman shook her head, then took her by her elbow. "Because I love my God so, it overwhelms me."

They walked out of the chapel, and the rest of the women who waited looked up in surprise that Lady Rose now held to little Jenny's arm as if she were prized. "That is no cause for tears," Jenny said.

"Mayhap, Jenny," Lady Rose confessed to her, "I weep because for my love of Him I have lost." She sighed, and then settled on one of the women who had only just arrived. "What have we heard from the Romanian?" she inquired.

"None as yet, Lady Rose. Last we heard from him was a report that he had arrived in England."

"Since then?"

"Nothing."

Lady Rose's eyes narrowed. "I pray he has stayed far from the queen," she said. "I would not want dear Carter to have more in his hands than he can manage. He knows his assignment, does he not? He knows it well?"

"Carter Baizen has never failed us before."

"Good. We wait another moon cycle, and if there is no word from your favorite—" Lady Rose turned to Jenny. "I am sending you."

Jenny drew a deep breath. She had known it would be her turn sooner or later, and had thought perhaps it would be later for her youth. "For a mission as dire that it required your very best, madame?" Jenny exclaimed.

"For this I need a heart." Lady Rose cupped Jenny's cheek. "At that you are now my very best."

"What is the mission, my lady?"

"In the guise of a spy working with Walsingham, Carter is in England to find a most prized treasure. If he cannot find my treasure, I shall send you there."

At that, Jenny nodded. "You can count on me."

Lady Rose smiled, pleased. "Now let us feed you, lest the English winds blow your little frame away."

~o~o~o~o~

Blair made her way back to her chambers after her first full day of service to the queen. She turned the corridor, then curiously saw two guards standing on her path to her room.

"Gentlemen," she greeted with a nod.

From behind one, stepped out Serena's guardian. "My lady."

"My lord Walsingham," Blair said in return. "Good tidings."

Blair's chamber door opened. Dorota peered outside anxiously. Blair stepped forward, then caught her breath when one of the guards stepped right into her path. He took her arm.

"Lady Blair, I regret to bear this news, but I must," Walsingham began. Dorota hurried out of the chambers and towards the guards, slapping the arm of the one that blocked her way. Walsingham continued, "You are hereby placed under arrest for the attempt on the queen's life during the Windsor hunt."

She wondered why her body was cool and calm. "My lord, you must know I have done nothing to warrant such a charge." She would not believe it, but the queen's regard for her weaved in and out of her vision.

"Come peacefully, Lady Blair, and there will be little harm to your person."

Blair allowed the guard to pull her, and her planted feet stumbled after them. She turned to Dorota, and said, "Call for Lord Bass, Dorota!"

"Bartholomew Bass," the maid acknowledged, jerkily nodding her head in her panic.

Of course, she realized. Bartholomew. It was good that Dorota remembered him. Surely the duke would go to court despite his objection to it, if he knew what had happened.

"Chuck!" Blair called to Dorota, before they pulled her towards the courtyard and out of sight.

tbc


	10. Part 9

**AN: **Thank you for being kind and dropping a note last time. Back to the story. Let me know your thoughts.

**Part 9**

He raced through the corridors as if the hounds of hell themselves nipped at his heels. Chuck Bass flew through the halls the mere second that Dorota charged into the banquet hall and frantically told him what he had first believed to be a ridiculous lie. But the panic and shock on the maid's demeanor had been enough to convince him, and Chuck stalked towards the queen's chambers and pushed the doors open.

There were but two of the queen's ladies left in the receiving room, and it was Serena who stepped forward and held up a hand.

"Lord Warwick," she said to Chuck, "the queen will receive no other visitor at this hour."

"Who is in there?" he barked, and he was sorely tempted to call Essex's name to see his friend stumble with his trousers about his ankles.

"Sir William, my lord," Serena answered hastily. "The queen has urgent matters to discuss with Lord Burghley."

His eyes narrowed. Chuck stormed towards the private chambers and threw the doors open. Elizabeth and Cecil looked up in surprise.

"Chuck, did my ladies not inform you that I did not wish to be distrurbed?" Elizabeth demanded. And then she called out, "Serena!"

Lady Serena hurried to the door and stopped beside Chuck, then dropped to a curtsy before the queen. "Your majesty, I apologize."

"What is this I hear of Lady Blair being arrested for the attempt on your life?" he said, knowing as he did that he had stepped over the line that only Essex had ever dared cross before.

"It is not rumor but the truth," Elizabeth informed him.

"Madame," Chuck stated, causing Elizabeth's thin red brows to rise up high on her forehead. Cecil shook his head in his disappointment and anxiety. "There is a stench in the air. My lady Blair had naught to do with the attempt on your life."

"Chuck," Cecil began, his tone pacifying and calm as indeed Chuck's and Elizabeth's were not, "allow Lord Walsingham to do what he must and the law—"

"Walsingham is a butcher when needed," Chuck spat. And then to Elizabeth, he demanded, "Where is she?"

Elizabeth rose from her seat, and Chuck had been to many of her declamations to know she sought to intimidating with her stance. "Lord Warwick," she said, "you had best beware your speech or your actions this night."

"She is my father's ward and I have a duty to protect her."

The queen waved the words away. "Francis will do right by her and by his duty," she said in dismissal. She gestured to the papers that littered her table. "Now I have need of you. Assess these plans and tell me how much it will deplete the coffers."

Chuck stepped into the room and picked up the drawing, which detailed plans for ships and bases for preparation. He tossed the paper back onto the table, then rested both his hands on top of the blueprints. "You had no reason to arrest her save for what is in your head, your majesty," he whispered. "I would beg your pardon for my discourtesy, but I would know where you had her taken."

At the words, Elizabeth's eyes sparked anger. She turned to Serena, then said, "I would have you know that Walsingham had presented irrefutable evidence that speaks of Lady Blair's guilt."

"What evidence?"

Cecil placed a hand on Chuck's shoulder, which was a sign for him to stop and think. He was dangerously close to a trip to the dungeon, but he would be the third generation of Bass to die of a Tudor whim and did not stop. Perhaps it was a family legacy after all.

It was then that Lady Serena cleared her throat. "My word, my lord," she stated. Chuck looked up in shock, for he had almost forgotten the lady-in-waiting had been present. She said, "I am witness to Lady Blair plotting with the Spaniards each night since she joined the court. She would hide behind the curtains, or slip unnoticed from the banquets." Chuck stared in awe as Serena recounted nights when Blair had vanished, nights that Chuck would never forget because Blair had spent them in his arms. And Serena wiped a tear from her eye.

Chuck strode towards Serena and closed his hand around the pretty neck. "You lie," he hissed.

Serena caught her breath as her feet rose from the ground, until only the tips of her beautiful shoes touched the floor.

"Warwick, release my lady at once!" the queen commanded.

Chuck's fingers tightened around her throat. Cecil worked to pull his hand to release Serena. "Chuck, gather your wits about you. Being thrown into a dungeon will help no one. Not yourself. Not Lady Blair."

Slowly, with much reluctance, he released Serena. When he did, she grabbed at her throat and gasped for breath. She looked up at Chuck and said, "I wish I lie, my lord, but it is true. Lady Blair aimed to get close enough to the queen to do her dastardly deed."

And then, in a whisper of disbelief, he breathed, "Why do you lie?"

Serena held her head high. Elizabeth walked towards her lady-in-waiting and held her up, then walked her to a seat. She handed Serena a glass of water herself, then turned to Cecil and Chuck. "There are far more important things for England to which we must put our minds and hearts. The Spanish Armada is soon to descend upon us." To Cecil, she said, "Baron Burghley, I hereby demand that you take the young earl to task for this. I will not waste my time on him." And then, quietly, she said, "I trust you, Sir William."

With a heavy sigh, Cecil brought Chuck out of the queen's chambers. Chuck drew deep, heavy breaths. Cecil took his arm and pulled him close.

"I would speak to you within the day," the old man told Chuck. "And no one can tell you where Walsingham has planned to take Lady Blair, but if you make haste, you may still be in time to see the barge before it departs."

It was then that Chuck found himself racing through the wet dewy grass under the moonlight, on his way towards the river where a small group of Walsingham's soldiers surrounded Blair.

"Hold!" he called.

Walsingham turned to him and held up a finger. "Stay where you are, my lord. This does not concern you."

"Chuck!" she exclaimed. She made to run towards him, but was hampered by the hands that held her. He looked furiously at the men who touched her, but it was she who protested. "Gentlemen, you had sworn if I came peacefully I would not be hurt. Do not dare touch me again with your coarse hands."

The guards wore gloves, but even so they released her following her words. He looked towards Lord Walsingham. "Free her," he said.

Walsingham refused. "I have here an order for Lady Blair's arrest from the queen herself. We have a witness."

His own ward. Yet Chuck dared not say it if only to spare Blair from the knowledge. Save for him, she had made only one friend in court. And Serena was the one who had concocted the lies. Chuck wanted to take her in his arms and escape with her, but neither of them would come out alive. If he learned anything from her, from his father, it was that the end must always be in mind.

He walked towards Walsingham and said quietly, "We both know that Serena lies. All the times she recounted, the lady was in my company."

"Do not implicate yourself where you are not," Walsingham stated.

"My lord, your ward is a liar to the very core, and—" he paused, "—if you so believe her then so are you!"

"Lord Warwick, " Walsingham said aloud, "do you truly dare for me to place you under arrest for treason?"

"No!" Blair exclaimed. Chuck turned to her, and she refused adamantly. She said to Walsingham, "Give me a moment with him, if you please."

At the request, Walsingham lowered her head in a bow. "I would not deny you a simple request, my lady," he said.

Blair gave a small, forced smile. "Not deny me, except should I ask you to free me, Lord Walsingham." The slight humor was unfeigned, unexpected, and Walsingham's lips quirked. She walked towards Chuck and when the guards moved to stop her Walsingham held a hand up. Blair made her way towards Chuck, far enough away that they could not hear.

Once he could touch her Chuck ran his hands down her arms, touched her face, and Blair could not help the tears that spilled. "Did they hurt you?" he asked softly. She shook her head while her tears rained down her face. "I shall write to my father," he told her. "I will have you freed."

She laughed softly. "Three years without speaking or visiting the duke, and you shall write to him now?"

"If it should save you, I would pen to the devil with my own blood," he whispered.

She smiled, then ran her fingers down his cheek. "Chuck, promise me," she asked.

And he turned his face so he might kiss her fingers. "Anything."

"My heart is light," she told him. "My conscience is clear without the shadow of a doubt. I have not nor ever wished ill upon my queen." She watched, waited, as his lips caressed her fingers. She then clutched at his hand. "Clear my name so I may return to serve her."

For a moment he was at a loss, until the words sank inside him. He shook his head in disbelief. Even her, as stubborn and single-minded as she was in her ambition, should be deterred by the threat of an execution. He told her, "Once you have gone from here, do not return. The best place for you is far away from this. The court will turn you, Blair, into a person you truly are not."

"I shall serve my queen until I die," she insisted.

His hand tightened where she had been clutching it, and he intertwined their fingers. "And so you shall." And then he shook his head. "You will drive me to insanity," he breathed.

"Lady Blair," Lord Walsingham said. "It is time."

She turned her head and looked back at the guards, the barge, the river. A drizzle started around them, and Blair looked up at the sky. "Even heaven weeps. God knows I am innocent," she said aloud.

Heaven weeps.

Once upon a time her mother had said the words to her, in a distant recollection, a memory so faint she wondered if it was not a dream. Eleanor Waldorf had stood out as the rain started to fall, and then she knelt in the mud and held tightly to the daughter she would leave behind. "Heaven weeps with me," Eleanor said to her daughter. "God knows I am loathe to leave you, ma cherie."

"Then why would you leave me, mother," she had asked, and she was so very young then.

"Because your father would never understand what it is to live in this prison," Eleanor had answered her daughter. And then, Eleanor had kissed her cheek and said to her, "But we will be together again, darling, and when the time comes I will have a rose for you."

The guards stopped beside Blair. She took a deep breath and stepped even closer to Chuck. He swallowed to loosen his tightening throat.

"Teach me to kiss goodbye," she asked softly.

Even before she finished, his mouth was slanted over hers and his lips moved on top of hers. And then, he covered her with his own cape, a deep red velvet, warm and soft and the best of all surrounded her with his scent. She turned around before he opened his eyes and she walked with the guards as they escorted her towards the barge.

Chuck waited under the drizzle as the river carried her barge. When she was gone from his sight, still he stayed. It was almost an hour later when he returned, wet and dripping back to court. He sought Cecil and found the old man's squire, who informed him that Lord Burghley awaited him in his chambers.

Chuck thanked Cecil's squire, then instructed, "Go to my squire and tell him that I need him to prepare my clothes for travel, then to brush my rouncey for a trip in the morning."

Chuck approached Cecil's chambers prepared to find a set of guards waiting to arrest him. Instead, he opened the door and found the older man sitting with a glass of wine. Another fresh glass sat on the table. Chuck took it and sniffed the beverage.

"It is not poisoned," Cecil pointed out. "I am drinking from the same bottle."

Chuck answered, "I was sniffing the flavor."

The old man chuckled softly for the stark lie. "I would have you know, Chuck, that I am sparing you your act of utter defiance of the queen only because the Duke of Northumberland, your father, is one of my oldest friends."

Chuck nodded his gratitude, yet found the argument thin and lacking in fairness. The man had likely spent merely a few years in college with Bartholomew, yet discounted the years of service he had given the council. "By virtue of the same, I want you to tell me where Walsingham is taking her. I would spare the queen my presence and install myself where it is closer to where Lady Blair will be held."

"You have regard for Lady Blair?"

"She is my father's ward," Chuck said. "I would have her safe, yet I do not understand her single-minded desire to serve a woman—"

Cecil cleared his throat. "Tread carefully."

"The queen has treated her like less of the peasants whose feet she kisses come the Maundy celebration. I would have the queen treat her better, a little closer than how she should be treated." Chuck took the glass of wine and swallowed the entire contents. Then he leaned forward and pleaded, "Tell me, Lord Burghley, where is she?"

Finally, Cecil said, "By the queen's command, she will be sent to the Tower."

Chuck drew a deep breath. He stood, then declared, "Then, Lord Burghley, I need your help in arranging my accommodations in the Lieutenant's Lodgings."

~o~o~o~o

She was growing old and tired of this game, Serena thought. She had accomplished what Walsingham had told her to accomplish, yet the guilt ate away at her heart. A year ago this would not have bothered her, but now her heart stung more than her poor abused neck.

Serena emerged into the garden and saw the figure wandering in the darkness. She saw Carter Baizen in a black doublet and black trouser, cloaked and hooded completely in black, stride quickly through the corridors.

She followed behind him, then ducked behind a pillar as he stopped close to Blair's chambers. He knocked on the door, then placed a single rose on the floor, along with a card. He then hid in time for Dorota, with her red-rimmed eyes, opened the door. The maid spied the gift and picked it up. She looked around and when found no one, she closed the door behind her.

Serena ran after Carter Baizen as he was about to leave the building. She caught up to him just in time. He turned around and caught her by her arm, twisted until she was pressed face first against the wall.

"You are following me," he said softly.

Serena gritted her teeth, then hissed, "I thought you had gone back to Lady Rose. Your mission is done. You lied."

He released her arm, then allowed her to turn around. Her back pressed against the wall, but he blocked her way out with his arms. "As if you knew nothing of lies," he answered easily, responding without providing more insight.

"I know lies," she answered. "I sent a friend to the Tower with lies." The words were a small relief, that admission. And she could only ever just admit to him. Back then she could do it with Penelope, but she was gone now.

He nodded in understanding. "I had been in that place. Your conscience tears you apart."

"Does it stop?"

Again, he nodded. "Soon your conscience tires and shall be gone from you." It was not what she wanted. She bit her lip. He sighed and said, "Tell me."

"I have told you. I made a friend, a true friend, and Walsingham has made me tell the queen such lies to gain his end." Nothing he could say will make it right. He would say it was part of the job, and that soon it would be better like it was for him. But she did not want to be like him. This could not be her whole life. "Why are you still here, ambassador?"

"I am come to England for the most important tasks that Lady Rose could assign to anyone."

And so, Serena demanded, "What does it have to do with Lady Blair Waldorf?"

He straightened, then asked, "What do you know of Lady Blair?"

Serena frowned. "Lady Blair has been sent to the Tower, Carter."

The spy cursed, then strode towards the gates out of the castle. Serena watched after him, then called his name. He did not answer, and within the blink of an eye, he was gone.

~o~o~o~o~o

She shuddered underneath the cape that Chuck had placed around her shoulders. Blair looked up at the yawning shadowed archway as the barge slowly followed the course of the Thames. The long, creaking noise chilled her bones as the two spiked gates were pulled and they entered the fortified outer defenses underneath the Tower of St Thomas.

Her breathing was unsteady, and each time she drew in air it was not enough. She knew well that they had arrived into the tower complexes, and despite her pride she kept her head down as they passed.

It was cold, so very cold, so eerily cold during the slow, agonizing drag from the gates through the water tunnel. She would not show any of the guards her utter fear, yet her guardian's voice hummed low in her mind as she remembered the cold, wet day when they had been warming in front of the fire. Bartholomew had given her a flask of wine, her very first taste, and the duke had been told the story as he reminisced. Later she would learn that it was the same day many years ago when he had, at twenty years of age, been brought through the same tunnel with his brother for their part in the rebellion to install Lady Jane into the throne.

"They had us brought into the Tower—all of us. The small boat passed through the Traitor's Gate—" Bartholomew had told her.

And knowing what was to come afterwards Blair kept her head down as if in prayer, imagined she had her face pressed up into Chuck's chest as he had done when she found herself about to witness a peasant woman hang. If only Chuck had been there with her, she knew she would be subject to the sight. And yet even as she wished it she gave thanks that he was not there to be implicated in the same lie.

Since she had been old enough to remember she had desired only to serve her majesty, and now here she was taking the same trip into the Tower of London as many traitors before her.

"There were heads on spikes displayed in the tunnel, Blair, for all to see. Beside me, Jack whispered that it would be the last time he would see London." The old man had swallowed a large portion of his wine, and even decades since he seemed as petrified as he must have been that night. "Did you know that when Catherine Howard went through the tunnel condemned for her adultery she had seen her lover's head on the spike?"

Blair had shuddered at the time that Bartholomew told her the story, and she shuddered then that she could only imagine whatever horrifying display was around her.

"Three blows of the axe."

That was how long it took to sever Jack Bass' head from his body. She was not guilty, but barely anyone escaped the Tower with their lives. She only hoped if she had to be executed death would be merciful and take her life within seconds. She did not wish for a prolonged death.

A cool hand rested on her shoulder. Blair jumped and refused to look. She would instead see in her eyes the lovely court, with the limber dancing and the wonderful clothes. She would see in her mind the warm fireplace that awaited her in Northumberland. She would remember instead the warmth of Chuck Bass' hands when they cradled her face, just as his lips slowly lowered to hers.

"My lady, you have arrived."

Slowly, she looked up and found herself past the tunnel. The yeoman extended his hand to her, and she placed her hand carefully in his as he helped her out and onto dry land.

"Am I to land in prison now?"

"Aye, my lady. We have prepared chambers in the Garden Tower for you."

She nodded, because it sounded less sinister than she had expected. Even then the guard who had escorted her quietly demanded from the yeoman. "We were not informed she would be in the Bloody Tower."

And a chill raced up her spine at the name. She had heard the name many times before, and to know that her prison would be the very same tower that had housed Bartholomew, his father and brother before the death of the latter two, was terrifying for her. The fear was heady and made her dizzy, but she was no fainting miss who would fall from a horrific reputation.

The march to her new lodgings was long despite its proximity to Traitor's Gate. Blair fought tears as she walked before her jailers.

"Have comfort, my lady," one of the guards said to her. She looked to her side in surprise, at the man who accompanied her from court. "Lord Walsingham has said you will not be hurt."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Have comfort?" she returned. "I am captured and held for a crime I did not commit."

"And you will stand trial for it, as with all nobles. Us title-less, landless do not have the same provision in the queen's law," shared the guard. "You are fortunate."

Blair looked ahead and fixed her gaze. "Fortunate," she repeated silently. The man called her fortunate—the death of her father early in her life, the loss of a mother, the rejection of a man she did not even love. And now she would stand trial while languishing in a fortress that had seen the deaths of countless others before her.

They walked along the white washed starkness of the White Tower. Blair marveled at the weather vanes that sat atop the turrets. The wind blew and the vanes spun until finally stopped, pointing towards the direction from where they came.

Where Chuck was.

She shook her head and returned her gaze to the tower they were to take her. It was Lord Walsingham who took her to her chambers in the Tower. Blair walked to the old seat in the center of the room, and found it equipped with a quill and sheets of paper.

"It is not so awful, my lord," she said as she surveyed the room, with its simple furnishings and used bed.

"And you have a view," said Walsingham. It neared morning. "Perhaps you can see the sun from here." He took her towards the barred window and looked on over her shoulder. She gasped at the sight below where a platform was being prepared with hay on the floor. "Tower Hill," Walsingham said. "It is where most prisoners are executed."

She grew cold as a man was pushed up towards the platform while the spectators watched. The man was blessed by a preacher, then a bag was placed over his head.

"I had seen this once," she said softly. It was the day Chuck Bass had held her to him at the precise moment when the woman was to die. This time, Chuck was not there, and she was caught in the horror as the boarded floor gave way under the man, and he struggled on the rope and twisted until he could not breathe. They lowered him to the floor, and she whispered in jubilation, "He is alive still!"

"I would pity the man," Walsingham said to her.

Blair watched in confusion as the executioner proclaimed the man still alive. The rope was removed from the man's neck, and then his wrists and ankles were tied together with the same rope. Blair watched as the other end was tied to the torso of a horse.

That was when Walsingham drew her away. When she sat, the realization dawned on her, and she knew just how the man would eventually die. She raised her chin as she met Lord Walsingham's eyes.

She did not expect the first words that he said.

"We suspect Chuck Bass."

She sputtered, "What?"

Lord Walsingham nodded, then shared, "More than you, my lady, it is Chuck Bass who we suspect for this crime. He was the only one who did not see to the queen. And for an unexpected event, you must have noticed that it was his squire who knew the exact moment to call his attention to the arrow."

The pitiful cry of the man outside rang clear in her ears, and the thunderous hooves pounded in her brain.

"Do you know how noblemen are executed?" he asked. Slowly, she nodded. Walsingham continued, "Lord Jack Bass, your guardian's brother—he was executed right outside this tower, Lady Blair. Their father, then duke of Northumberland—he was executed the same way. They wanted to cease the power for Lady Jane Gray and for that they died. That is the line that Chuck Bass hails from, and it was only by the grace of the queen that Bartholomew is alive."

She licked her lips. The horrible death noise had stopped, and she knew the poor soul had passed. "What are you saying, Lord Walsingham?"

"I am saying that if you are innocent, then it is someone else who planned it. And Chuck Bass can very easily be proven guilty without a trial, Lady Blair."

"He has done nothing save see that I was alive, when all the rest of the court hurry to the queen."

"And that shall get him a visit to the executioner." He paused. "I know you enjoy playing chess, my lady. It is your move." Lord Walsingham bowed to her, then left the chambers. She started when the heavy door closed, and the locks engaged with a clattering noise.

tbc


	11. Part 10

**AN: **And so the drama, the intrigue continues. Everyone has an agenda. Who do you trust?

**Part 10**

A fortnight gone and the world surrounding her were rending silence and still noise. Many a night she had looked out into the window at the thick wall of rain that ever poured outside, blocking from her sight London and the Thames, hiding even the hope that she could see a land so far up north where it was cold and wet and safe from harm. He had forgotten her, she told herself. She wished he had forgotten her. So far that she remained wordless, a passive suspect in this crime, he was far enough away from what fate awaited him.

The groaning sound accompanied the heavy bolts pushed to the side. And then the darkened figure strode towards her, in a heavy dark cape that plastered to his thighs as he charged towards her. He hunkered over her, and she gasped, wide-eyed, staring into the stranger's intent face.

"Come with me," he commanded, in a strange, mumbled accent she could not place.

She shook her head. "I cannot leave this place," she said.

"They would sooner sever your pretty little neck than listen to your pleas," he told her. And then his hand wrapped around her wrist, and he pulled her up against his wet form. "I know a place where you shall be safe."

The cold metal keys hit her arm as he pulled her. Blair glared at the keys in the ring, then demanded, "Who are you? What have you done to Leon?"

"Your guard lays asleep outside, in comfort."

"Of his own will?" she asked.

"Of mine," he proudly claimed. "I felled him to reach you."

Leon had been kindly, and despite that she was a prisoner of the crown had laid not one hand on her. In the past week had even brought her a book of sketches, and in charcoal likenesses she reminisced about her beloved moors.

"Such a fragile little thing, my lady," her guard said to her, when he had spied her looking at the sketch of a tiny Highland flower.

"And yet," she said, remembering Bartholomew's words as she laid her horse away from the clump of the dainty blossoms, "strong and wild that it grows where even the thorniest, hardiest bushes wither."

Because where the strongest withered, a pretty flower could prove that she could weather the world.

"Like you, my lady," her guard had told her. "I have seen grown men curse at their fates for days on end. In truth, and begging your pardon, once I saw a noble knight fall upon his own dagger for the shame of having been so accused.

Take her own life? It was preposterous. Ridiculous. Utterly impossible.

Leon had been kindly, and brought her another coarse blanket when hers had been too thin for the night's chill.

And this man, with his large eyes and full lips, with his pale skin and near fearsome frown, brought her old Leon down for her sake.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"I am come to save you," he stated. "I am come to take you to your sanctuary, where your queen cannot touch you."

It was a test, she swore. Her queen had sent her this temptation to measure her devotion. She pulled away from him, extricated herself. But the sound of the night guards marching the hall down below pierced through her walls and he slapped a hand over her mouth.

She struggled, and he said low into her ear, "Lady Blair, I do not wish you harm. I will lay my life down for you." And the quiet assurance gentled her resistance. "My name is unimportant, but I have seen you in court. I have been watching, and waiting." And then, "If I take my hand away, will you swear you will not scream?"

She nodded. If she screamed it was she who would be buried deeper in suspicion, for he would only swear to her service. He freed her, and she turned around. Blair gasped, and the blinders fell from her memory as she recalled, "I had seen you. You were in the Romanian party."

"For a time," he admitted.

"What is it you want from me?" she asked.

And then, he bowed in front of her, and for a moment she felt a deep thrill run through her. Because the greatest ambition she remembered was an audience, and a year of service, to the queen of England. And here he was, paying his deep respect. Slowly, to her utter awe, he lowered himself to one knee. "Forgive your humble servant," he said. "I dared touch you for your own sake."

"What are you doing?" she breathed.

"When I learned that you had been taken prisoner, I failed you. And I failed your mother."

Her entire breath released from her body. Blair stepped back. "My mother."

"Your mother searches for you, Lady Blair. I am but a humble servant of Lady Rose."

Her heart drew deep, slow, large pumps. And she met his eyes, as if they were in slow, persistent, outlined motions. "My mother is gone," she whispered. She had asked Dorota, because Dorota should have known it all. "Lady Rose—who is Lady Rose?" She shook her head. "My mother is Eleanor Waldorf, and she had gone when I was but little—"

"She remains in the French court, my lady."

Summers in France, she thought, dancing and laughing in Queen Catarina's gay court. They spend her young court life with the Florentine queen of France, who had held her like she was her own dear child.

"With her cousins, where you shall be safe."

Queen Elizabeth could not dare brand her a traitor in the French court. The keys in the man's hand glinted, throwing back a shine to her eyes.

"Say aye, and hold your breath." He stepped close to her, placed a hand on her hip. She stepped back, because until then despite her earlier betrothal to another man it had only ever been Chuck Bass who had touched her so intimately. "Say aye and I vow to you before a hundred breaths you shall be free."

"You seek to work miracles, ambassador?" she said.

"Nay," he answered. "But I am a master at this field."

"Say aye," he said, more urgently now, as the sound of the marching drew nearer.

It would be Walsingham. She knew well enough the time he came. The spymaster grew more impatient by the day, and still she held her queen behind little wooden soldiers, posed beside her vulnerable king. "What would they say if I should vanish from my cell?" she asked. "That I were guilty of these charges, that I had planned to kill the queen of England."

"It matters not when you are safe across the channel."

She wished, with all her heart, he spoke the truth. And somewhere out there her mother thrived, and loved her enough to send a man for her. But should she sail, she would be leaving with this threat that hung over Chuck Bass' head. And he had only ever been good to her.

So she answered, "No. I would not cause a man to die."

The ambassador—although she knew he was not that she could think of no other way to address him—drew back with alarm. "They are almost here. Tell me."

"No!" she declared.

He took a small piece from inside his pocket, and then held it up between them. It appeared like a coin, with a crude carving of a rose. When he pinned it to her dress she realized it was a brooch.

"Drop this down your window when you are prepared to leave," he instructed.

And then, even before she could nod, he was gone. The door slammed shut, and she heard the jangling of the keys grow faint, imagined his hooking the metal ring back into Leon's hand. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited, heard the slight scuffle outside and knew it was a reprimand on Leon. They had thought him asleep within the hours of his watch.

The ambassador worked clean, she thought.

Finally, her door opened once again. She started when she saw Walsingham enter. The spymaster stepped closer to her, then smiled.

"Think you I am a terrific monster?" Walsingham said gently.

"I hardly think of you, my lord," she answered coldly.

The man nodded, then told her, "You think to wound me. But I am old, thick-skinned, and care not of my manners any longer." He shook his head. "I had thought you have begun to take pleasure in our visits."

"Each time you come, you take a day from my life."

He shook his head. "Are you so unused to a man who is unaffected by your charms, Lady Blair? Are you so opposed to one you cannot manipulate?" Before she spoke, he chuckled. "My visit is not to torment you. Not today," he informed her. "I am come to take you to Beauchamp."

He nodded at the two guardsmen he had brought with him.

"You are fortunate, my lady. Beauchamp has finer accommodations than the Bloody Tower." Walsingham scratched his beard. "A queen of England once was imprisoned there."

"You think a gilded cage is better, but it is still a cage."

The spymaster folded his arms across his chest. "Northumberland descends upon us," he said.

Blair's lips parted. He had not forgotten. A fortnight and she dared not hope, yet here was the magnificent changes. Her guardian, despite his hatred of London and the court, went south of his beloved moors. For her. Chuck Bass had written to his father. For her.

"The duke," she said.

"How else does a nameless girl, accused of treachery, move from the Bloody Tower to Beauchamp?" Walsingham sighed. "The duke, I suspect, and his blasted association with William Cecil."

"You speak, my lord," Blair said, as she fell into step beside Walsingham as they crossed the Tower Green, "as if another prison is a blessing."

"At times, I wonder how one such as he can have such power to take this all for yourself," Walsingham said, as he deposited her to the entrance of Beauchamp Tower, her new prison.

It was the tower a mere walk from the old, and they had, under the rain, passed another building on the way.

"Until tomorrow," he said to her. "Your chambers are up the stairs, the second door to your left." He paused. "Take caution," he told her. "Beware the Basses."

And then, surprising to her, Walsingham and his guardsmen departed. Blair stared in open-mouthed shock. She looked around her, where there were no walls surrounding her. She glanced at the yeoman at the door. She entered the tower, then stepped back outside. When the yeoman did not move, her eyebrows drew together.

"Once, my ancestor was imprisoned here, tainted his name until he regained his honor and he was set free."

She almost sobbed aloud at the sound of his voice. Her breath hitched in her throat, and she whirled around.

Beware the Basses, she had been told, but her heart knew well who it was and leapt in joy.

Chuck Bass stood there, under the rain, with sad triumph in his eyes. "From that day they named this tower after him."

And the first thing she could say, as she wiped at her tears, was, "He said one as lowly as I did not deserve a prison as fine."

"Walsingham," he pronounced, as succinctly as he could, "is an ass."

And the words brought soft laughter from her lips. She had gone on too long without laughter.

"My father remains in court, with Cecil and the queen, and we will not rest until you are free." And then, he stepped close to her. "For now, I will remain in the queen's lodgings," he said. She eyed the structure right by her prison. "You are afforded the rights of the prisoners within. You are not locked into your chambers. You may roam the tower if you wish. With a guard, you may step outside and walk under the sun."

"Should there be sun," she said.

"Of course there would be," he answered.

She stepped out of the cover of the tower and ran across the rain, muddying her only pair of shoes. Blair threw her arms around his neck and pulled him down, and she sighed when his lips caressed hers.

"You had done all this," she said.

"Did you truly believe I would have wished for you to spend a moment longer in that vile place?"

She smiled at him, vibrant, and for once she felt hopeful that perhaps they would come through this trial together. "The queen—how does the queen?"

"The queen does not know I am here," he answered. "She had asked her council to gather in the morning."

She pulled away, a frown on her brow. "Chuck—"

"It was a choice that I made," he said easily. She remembered Walsingham's dire warning, and his reason for Chuck being suspect of the crime. "Why should the queen," he said, and Blair held her breath, because as he looked down at her, with his face above her shielding her from the rain, she thought he was more beautiful now than he had ever been in court, "begrudge a man a moment to see his wife?"

"My lord, what are you saying?"

"Here I am, drenched, cold, exiled myself into the queen's lodgings with nary another soul in sight," he told her. "I cannot bear to lose you."

"You wish to wed me," she repeated.

When she paused, he added, "You will be a countess. None of Elizabeth's women has a title far nobler than mine. And when we prove that you are innocent—"

A triumphant return to court.

"The queen abhors you for Essex," he told her. "Let us take away the stain of Robert Devereaux from your name."

She shook her head. "You cannot think he is the reason for my misfortune. The queen is not so vile."

"When the queen discovered that Essex's stepfather—her favorite courtier Dudley—had married one of her ladies—"

She placed a finger over his lips. "Shush. They are rumors. We were hardly old enough to remember. The queen and the earl of Leicester—"

He took her hand and raised it to his lips. "Marry me. We shall go to the chapel under the cloak of the night. And I swear to you, Blair, the queen will relent."

"You would do this for me?" she asked. And he nodded. A title, freedom, ease of mind. "Why?"

He took it as an answer in the affirmative. "Why ever not?" he responded. "Now you shall have all of mine."

"And you, all of mine," she said gently. "Be it that I have not much to offer you."

Blair turned around as he jogged through the drizzle and handed a hefty purse to the yeoman, who upon weighing the pouch in his hand turned his back on the two.

His hand was warm around hers. When he looked back at her, Blair marveled at the look on his face. Her heart raced with the thrill. They crossed the greenery and ran towards the White Tower. At their approach, Blair hesitated, then tugged at Chuck's hand. He looked back at her and raised his brows, then gently urged her by pulling her along.

They entered the austere chapel, with its high ceiling and large round pillars. It was stark white, undecorated, cold.

"It is not the wedding you had planned."

"The only wedding I knew to think of was the ceremony I would have had with Nathaniel Archibald," she said. She glanced back at the chapel, with none of the glory of the court. "Countless prisoners took their last rites here, and even then this is superior to wedding him."

He chuckled, drew her forward. His boots sounded on the cement floor as he walked to the minister who knelt before the altar.

"And the banns?" the minister asked.

To which Chuck replied easily, "Read."

"Three times?"

"Three and a hundred," he swore. "More perhaps. My father's had them read back home since we can remember."

It was a lie, and it exhilarated her. Her lips curved as he leaned forward and said quietly, "The goal is to marry tonight. The lie with which we do reach it does not matter."

She was wed quickly, without pomp. It was a secret affair and over soon. She thought her heart would sink, just because it was never what she had imagined when she wed. But as the minister spoke and he held her gaze, she could think of nothing she would choose over the dank austerity of that night.

Chuck Bass—her husband Chuck—walked with her to Beauchamp Tower, then released her hand. "Good night," he said to her. "Countess."

And it was she who stepped close and kissed his cheek. Between the two, she stood to gain more from what he had proposed than she. With gratitude, she said, "Good night, my lord." She placed a hand on his vest. "Tomorrow, will I see you? Will you walk with me?"

"Give me a day. And I will tell the court I have taken you to wife. Will you give me a day?"

"A day," she agreed. "And not a moment more."

He smiled for her, then leaned and captured her lips. "I cannot bear to be apart for longer," he swore.

tbc


	12. Part 11

**Part 11**

The very second he turned to leave he wished he had not, and any other time there was no reason for Chuck Bass, earl of Warwick, to deny himself. Yet still he returned to Elizabeth's court made bountiful by his own service—for truly the crown owed him the pomp and the luxury that it could ill afford before he took command of the treasury—and strode to the queen's privy chambers for an audience.

"My lord," Serena said to him, discouraging him from striding unannounced, "the queen has pressing matters of the kingdom on her plate."

Chuck eyed the hand that the blonde placed on his vest to stay him. "You dare speak to me, and stand before me, after the lie you have told."

Her lips thinned. "What lies?" she demanded. "You challenged nothing of it. I spoke no lie."

He wrapped his hand around her wrist and brought her hand down. "Well then, my lady, prepare yourself for I will strip you bare before the queen."

A spark of fear flashed in her eyes, like thunderbolt.

"How shall you fare, I wonder, with your guardian is in the Tower?"

Serena raised her chin up, then pronounced. "You will find, my lord Bass, that the queen regards me more trustworthy than you. If it is between your word and mine—"

"More trustworthy." He scoffed, chuckled. "Be it so, I am invaluable to this kingdom. You are, sadly, not. If there is a need to choose, she will discard you the way she has discarded her ladies in the past—Frances, Beth, Penelope… even Blair."

"Because you are a man?" Serena said acidly.

"Because I am Chuck Bass, and the food at the trestle, the jewels upon her gowns, the oil in every lamp in this court is due me," he said, proudly, without a trace of uncertainty.

Confidence, he had taught Blair, would get her what she wanted. He would talk to the queen now bearing the full confidence of all that he had brought to court. There was no room for a faint heart. He was not seeing merely to himself. He was a husband now, with a responsibility to another soul.

He stepped forward, and Serena rushed towards the door and stayed him. The door behind her opened and Chuck looked up and met Essex's surprised gaze.

"Let me talk to her," Chuck said.

Essex licked his lips. "I would rather you did not," he began. "As would Cecil and your father. Your last encounter with the queen, Cecil has informed us, almost landed you in the Tower along with Lady Blair."

If he were not Chuck Bass, he would have thought the concept ideal—where he and she would see each other daily, imprisoned, with the entire kingdom a world apart.

"I must speak to the queen on behalf of Blair," he insisted.

Essex took Chuck's arm, and Serena returned to her seat. "Your father speaks to Cecil for his ward."

"You and I know, Robert, that the last word shall remain with Elizabeth," he said quietly. "Cecil and Northumberland can speak until their mouths are dry, and it would make no difference should her majesty have decided." Chuck placed a hand on the other man's shoulder. "I need your support."

With Essex championing his cause, Chuck found himself in an audience with the queen. Essex made certain upon the queen's agreement that there would be a small group of witnesses to the exchange. Cecil and his father emerged from their small discussion to watch, and Serena with the other ladies sat in their circular couch.

"Lord Warwick," the queen declared promptly, "Lord Essex tells me that you have asked for my time. Here I am. I hope that you are calmer of demeanor now."

"I thank you for the audience, your majesty." Chuck bowed deeply, knowing the next should require that the queen accept him as a loyal subject. "I have news to share, and I would share it first with you."

The unspoken words, of her essence in his life that required her to be the first informed, made the queen smile in pleasure.

"I am married, your majesty," Chuck stated. His own father looked on in surprise.

"Married? My courtier married, and I was not asked to bless the event with my presence."

"Forgive me, your majesty. I do not see you in such squalor." With a measured breath, he released, "I have married my Blair at St Peter's, in the White Tower."

He saw the slight tremor of the queen's hand. "Chuck Bass, you have married a traitor to the crown."

"No," he corrected firmly, feeling ill at ease at the selection of the words, "I have married my wife. And she is no traitor." Chuck met his father's eyes. "And I would ask, for the honor of the Bass family, that you reinstate my countess for she is truly innocent of the charges levied against her."

He noticed the light that brightened his father's eyes when the old man realized, with the last statement, what end Chuck had in sight.

"You would remember, your majesty, how an old earl of Warwick lost his title and his lands with false accusation. And it was the kingdom's shame that required reinstatement and more lands."

The queen gestured for Chuck to step forward. The queen rested her elbows on her knees to ask, "And what proof have you that Blair Waldorf is not the culprit?"

"And the kingdom's proof—the word of a lady-in-waiting who, begging your utmost pardon, has been seen more than once after overconsumption."

"Do you have any other proof apart from Lady Serena's word?" the queen demanded.

"Mine," Chuck claimed.

"Yours," the queen repeated.

"I can say it freely now when once I could not for fear of your disapproval, your majesty. But I have made an honest woman out of Lady Blair and I must confess." He looked pointedly at Serena van der Woodsen. "All the days that Serena van der Woodsen claimed to have witnessed her betraying you, your majesty, my wife was in my bed."

The few in the queen's receiving chambers erupted into quiet, murmured conversation. Cecil turned to Bartholomew thoughtfully. Chuck's father nodded at him. Chuck chose to believe it was encouragement.

The queen turned to Essex, who stood behind Chuck. "And what of you, my lord Essex? Do you claim to have had Lady Blair in your bed all the days stated in Lady Serena's accusation?"

"Your majesty!" Serena gasped in protest.

And despite that his thread of patience having grown longer the past days, he reveled when the queen sharply berated the lady, "Do not interrupt, Serena. You had your chance to speak. Today is some other's."

Chuck waited for Essex—the man's response could seal Blair's fate. "I would not presume to claim so, majesty. From the day she arrived in court, I had known she was Bass'."

Why Essex would lie so, was beyond him. But it was the perfect choice of words for the powerful woman who still bore certain desires.

"Now who would you believe—two of your council, your majesty, to whom you have entrusted England's gold as well as your life—or Serena van der Woodsen?"

The queen rubbed her chin in thought.

"Your majesty, I have served only you for a year," Serena contested. "I have no cause to lie."

But the queen had heard what she wanted to hear, both from Chuck and especially from Essex. She waved Serena away, then said, "We shall deal with you later." To Cecil, the queen instructed, "Once Walsingham returns, have him come to me."

Before the queen dismissed them, Chuck demanded, "The court records show Lady Blair engaged still to Lord Archibald, your majesty. I would have it struck, and state my marriage to her."

The queen paused, then sat back on her chair and quietly stared at him. And then she nodded, motioned to Cecil and said when the old man moved forward, "Let is be so, William." She turned to Chuck, then asked, "And you wish the court to take your marriage as legal—despite having no blessing and I assume no banns, no witnesses?"

"In my heart, your majesty, I am wed to Blair Waldorf."

The queen's lips curled, and Chuck recognized for the first time the combination of admiration and distrust in Elizabeth's regard for him. "All these months, Chuck, I have not given you your due." Chuck paused, waited for the queen to expound. "Wed to Blair," she repeated. "To strike her engagement to Nathaniel Archibald and write of her wedding to you—it should strike out as well Harold's will to grant his treasures to the man. And to reinstate Lady Blair, as you had asked, shall grant her the lands I would have given her father."

His heart rebelled at the words that the queen strung together, and the opinion that came with them.

"Eighteen moons you have petitioned for these lands, and now you shall have them freely," the queen voiced. Chuck felt the heat of Essex's gaze. Even his own father shifted his regard. "Well played, Bass."

~o~o~o~o~

Despite the ease with which life had become in Beauchamp Tower compared to the Bloody Tower, Blair still found herself unsettled. She was newly wed, and her husband was to arrive soon. She glanced down at the dress she wore, much the same as the one she had worn on her wedding day save for that this was dry.

There were no perfumes, no whale-bone backed brushes, no fragrant soaps. There was no white powder for her face, or rogue to stain her cheeks. She glanced out the window. The sun was to set soon, and soon she would see her husband.

Husband. His face flashed in her mind's eye, and a small thrill coursed through her body.

She took her meal with apprehension. Blair caught her reflection in the mirror, she hastily pushed her hair back. In court, he would have just seen women as beautiful as the ideal Serena van der Woodsen—with her golden locks that every woman desires, and her flawless skin, and her statuesque form. She turned her gaze away. Confidence, he had told her. And indeed it was confidence she needed for she had not much of anything else to offer a man.

But even so, he had wed her. Her chest swelled with pride. And he had kissed her, more times than she could count, pursued her in court when the banquet was littered with women more spectacular to the eyes. Chuck Bass had danced with her, held her close, teased her lips until they parted for him.

She could not wait to see him, that she may feel beautiful again.

Later today she would be in the garden, and she would walk alongside Chuck Bass. She wondered if he would take her hand and see it bare. Perhaps he would give her a ring. A ring would be—

She shook free of the sentiment that washed over her.

The loud creaking of the heavy doors caught her attention, and even then she could not help the breathlessness within her. She turned around and saw the yeoman nod towards her in greeting.

"There is a visitor for you, my lady."

"Is it—" her voice dropped, hesitating at the word so new to her tongue. But the man had taken the purse from Chuck that they could be married the day before, so he was the one person she knew to whom she could use the reference. "Is it my husband?"

And still, that same chill, the same thrill. She repressed the urge to smile, when all she wanted was to smile.

The guard stepped aside, and Blair was surprised the see her Dorota enter. Behind her another figure, a shorter one. Her heart sank when the yeoman bowed and shut the door. Dorota rushed towards her and wrapped her arms around Blair.

"My lady, you are well!"

"I am," Blair claimed happily, returning the affection with enthusiasm. She frowned at the sight of the boy. "You are my lord Chuck's squire—"

"Eric, my lady," he offered. "He is unable to come this day, and has sent me to bring your maid to you. My lord prays you will find comfort with your maid while he is yet unable to return."

Dorota released her, and made a clucking sound with her tongue as she inspected her. The maid turned to the squire and instructed for him to take the chest in. "Lord Bass has petitioned the queen for me to be allowed here, my lady, and to take some of your comforts to you."

Despite her earlier desires, she latched on to the squire's words. "He will not come?"

"He wishes to come to you once all is prepared, my lady. There are pleas, documents—"

"Whatever for?"

And finally, Eric admitted to her, "You see, my lady, the earl is caught in the council. But he shall come for you the second he is able."

"He chooses the queen over me," she murmured.

Dorota's voice dropped, and she asked as he ran a brush over Blair's knotted hair. "Is it true, my lady, that you have wed Chuck Bass?"

Blair nodded, and grimaced at the stinging sensation in her scalp as her maid pulled at the hair. "He swore it would gain my place back, and prove me innocent."

"How kind of him," Dorota told her, and Blair whole-heartedly agreed. "Well, Lady Blair, I have just in time. We will fix your hair, and you can wear your clothes." She opened the chest that Eric brought her. Dorota drew out a light gown, of redsatin and black brocade and Blair gasped at the sight.

"Dorota, it is a sight!"

"You have had this gown for four seasons, my lady."

"And I have grown weary and ugly in this tower," she said to her maid. "Even this is a wondrous sight for me."

"Well, my lady, you shall wear this when Lord Bass comes to take you back. You must descend upon the court as beautiful as you were. The court knows you have been imprisoned here, but when be certain that your lord husband shall have you freed. They must not see the strain, or any shame. Remember—"

"What matters is I am freed."

Dorota shook her head. "You are only as powerful as your clothes compel the world to see you. Your mother told you that—"

"When I had refused the frocks she had me wear in the French court," she said in remembrance.

With Dorota to assist, and Eric lugging water—despite the superiority of her new accommodations the throne was unwilling to spend for servants for a prisoner—Blair sank into the warm water of an old bathtub. She shuddered to think of which criminal had last bathed in it. So long as the water was clear and there were no bloodstains there she imagined that it was Jane Grey who last bathed there. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply as Dorota scrubbed the coarseness out of her hair.

"My lady—"

The boy had gone off to rest on his own, and Blair told herself to remember to ask him when he was due to leave. Chuck was sure to need his own squire, and she could not continue to use little Eric to draw her baths. The queen herself, when she was imprisoned, had her ladies about to help her along—and she survived with no manservants in the Bell Tower. Dorota was more than enough, certainly more than others of her rank deserved.

She was a countess now.

"Are you truly married?"

Blair opened her eyes, and Dorota now knelt before her massaging her hands. Blair licked her lips and answered, "We swore our souls to one another in front of a cross, and spoke our vows before a minister."

The maid nodded. "Did he come to your chambers?"

Blair blinked, and her eyes widened at what she understood. "Chuck Bass returned to court, to speak with the queen."

"He did not touch you."

"He has touched me. A hundred times over before the thought of marriage entered our minds," she clarified. During those lessons she had pressed herself over him, so deliciously torturous and sinful. And his searching lips had gone from her mouth to a bare shoulder. "And I have touched him," she confessed.

Dorota kept her gaze on Blair's hands as she cleaned her nails free from grime and the dirt of the air. She remembered when Dorota had asked about her maidenhead. At that her maid had been flustered even. "He did not enter your chambers once you were wed." Blair shook her head. "Did he—" Dorota's voice was low. "Did he enter you, my lady?" Blair's brows furrowed. "Like the stallions in the duke's stables mount the mares."

"Dorota!" Blair gasped, sitting up on the tub flushed with shame. "People—people do not mount like horses—"

"Did he—"

"He most certainly did not," Blair gasped. "And I did not whinny like a mare. No, he kissed me properly on my mouth like a husband is to do."

"My lady, I wish your mother were here to speak with you."

"I wish it too, Dorota."

"Truly, it would be best if you learn of this from your mother." Dorota shrugged. "In truth, having seen how the duke handled your education these past years, I even wish in Lady Eleanor's absence that he speak of this thing to you."

Blair asked, "What things?"

"My lady, when your husband succeeds and takes you back to court, or to his own castle in Warwick, he would expect from you—your wifely duties."

At that, Blair rose from the tub and allowed Dorota to wrap her in linen to dry herself. She stepped off the tub. Dorota took a simple shift tunic dress from the chest. "I suppose he would, in return for his name and his title, wish for me to perform these duties. But he will teach me what he wants."

This time, it was Dorota who flushed.

Blair continued, "He can tell me what his favorite food is to eat, and I shall have the kitchen prepare it for him. Should he need his clothes mended, I have some skill with a needle. And I shall play chess with him. He enjoys a vocal game of chess in the bedchambers."

"And he will want to warm your bed," Dorota added. "To sleep with him, my lady. To—"

He had mentioned it, in their game of dare, and he had whispered into her ear in the middle of the dance floor, how she would wrap her legs around him before she did it for Essex. But she had been involved in her scheme, so deeply immersed, that she had not paid much heed to the words.

"Mount me," she repeated to Dorota, in a scandalized whisper.

Dorota nodded.

In confidence, she said to her maid with a sinking heart, "I do not know how to be mounted." She remembered the scene in the stables, when the duke wished to breed the horses, remembered the violent sight, the grotesque noises. "It seems to be painful."

"It is a burden that women must bear." Dorota tied the laces of her tunic dress, then placed a fresh pair of sandals on the floor. "You are fortunate, my lady, because you are wed to Lord Chuck," she told her. "While most young women at home must suffer a bumbling man too fresh and too eager, you have been given a man who can make it easier for you."

Easier. When she had been pressed against him she felt the hardness that sprung to life upon contact with her body. In the context of the stables, the memory turned worrisome. She had entered another world, it seemed. Before it had been easy, too easy. She had learned to use the wiles she had, the wiles that Chuck Bass had enhanced with his lessons, and planned for seduction. Yet never once had she thought that seduction ended in what the stallions did to the poor protesting mares.

"I do not think I can trick a man again!" she said as she settled into bed.

Dorota pulled up a chair and sat with her. Blair closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. The noise from below woke her, and Blair padded out of the bed and made her way back to the window. Dorota had already been woken and she stood out by the window as well.

"What is it?" she whispered.

It was the middle of the night, or somewhere in between dawn and twilight. Blair did not expect that others would be about. Yet she peered outside the window and saw the small group that gathered. It was a merely half a dozen people, counting the executioner and the man whose head was laid on the block. Blair recognized the minister as the one who married her. The minister blessed the prisoner as the man knelt and asked for forgiveness.

"They are in the green," Blair whispered.

"My lady, come step away."

"They will kill him in the green," she said.

"They are wont to do so only for the upper tier of the queen's nobles," Dorota said. "And for those who have committed crimes more personal in nature against the kingdom."

Blair watched in mystified concentration. "I had never seen a beheading before," she said.

"Then he is a nobleman. That honor is reserved for the likes of lords and ladies, kings and queens." And then, Dorota said the one thing that she regretted hearing. Thoughtlessly, she added, "That is how they would execute an earl of your husband's rank, or a duke like Lord Bartholomew."

Blair gasped.

"Not to say, my lady, that they will be executed."

He had told her of his family's past, and now wondered if Lord Jack himself had been incarcerated in this building before he was beheaded upon the very block she saw. Below her, the lord's head was lopped off cleanly, with none of the agony that the previous criminals she had seen experienced. The executioner reached for the fallen head, grasped the hair, and raised it to the crowd.

And she imagined that it was Chuck Bass' face.

She stepped back with a hand on her mouth, then fell onto her knees and vomited. She wiped at her mouth.

"No," she whispered. "I would not see a man who has only sought to help me die like so."

"He will not," Dorota soothed her. "Lady Serena is alone in her lies."

"Lady Serena?" she asked.

Clearly, from the look on Dorota's face, she had assumed that Chuck had told her the story behind her imprisonment. Dorota said, "Her word is the reason you are here, my lady. But do not fear, your lord husband will take care to clear your name."

"Get a pen and a quill, Dorota," she instructed. When the maid did not move, and seemed to pause, Blair rushed to the table at the corner of the room. She grasped as the quill, then dipped it into the ink. Unsteadily, because she had not written or needed to write for so long a time now, she scratched the tip of the quill onto the paper. She drafted the message and then stared at it, waited for the ink to dry.

Dorota slowly read the words.

"I want you to keep this, Dorota. Give this to Lord Walsingham. Should my lord not succeed, I would have Walsingham and the queen learn this."

"What is it, my lady?" she asked.

"It is my confession," Blair told her maid. "That I have come to slay the queen."

"If we give this, you will be beheaded, my lady."

"We will use it only in the event that they should lie and find Chuck Bass guilty of this crime," Blair told her. When the ink dried, she rolled it and handed it to her maid. "I trust you, Dorota. I trust you shall keep this missive and are prepared to offer this to Walsingham, or to Cecil, or the queen herself should that happen."

"And be the bearer of your death warrant, my lady?" Dorota tested.

"I cannot die," Blair told her maid. She brought Dorota over to the desk and showed her the round gold brooch. "This is my savior. And I shall prove it to you, Dorota. You will see. You will carry my message and trust in your heart that I will not be hurt." She took the brooch in her hand, then dropped it outside. It would take time, certainly, because she was no longer where he had last left her. But if the ambassador truly was as skilled in this game as he claimed, he would find her.

Morning arrived, and by the time the green had been cleared. A dark stain remained on the block, and it was the only sign of what had happened under the cloak of the night.

Dorota was asleep still, with her missive tucked into the space between her bosom. Despite her refusal, the maid had slipped the message safely close to her body. Willing or not, Dorota would bear her confession when it needed to be done—because it was what she wanted.

When morning came, Blair left the maid asleep and made her way to the fireplace and found an older man knelt in prayer. The man kept to himself, but Blair had seen him once or twice in the hallways. The man turned to her, and as if seeing into her head, he said, "You have seen another soul depart."

"In the night," she admitted. "We have lost another soul."

He shook his head. "Another soul found its way back to our Father. He has but begun a new life." He rose, dusted off his clothes, then bowed in greeting. "Arundel," he said. "Philip Howard."

She gave him a courtly curtsy, just as Chuck had once taught her. Being imprisoned did not need to erase all good manners. "My lord," she said, recognizing the title as that of an earl. "My name is Blair Waldorf." And then, with a slight hesitation, she added, "Bass."

The man's brows rose in surprise. "Lady Warwick."

She supposed she was. It was the first she had used the name, the first she had been referred by the title that wedding Chuck Bass earned her. It was one of the most powerful names in England. And now, she possessed the name of the kingmakers of generations. "Warwick," she said. "I suppose I am."

Walsingham arrived shortly after a simple breakfast. Philip Howard excused himself, and when he stood even the spymaster lowered his head in deference to the man.

"How is my lord husband, Walsingham?" she asked, still proud of the feat—what she considered wedding Chuck Bass to be. Walsingham's eyes narrowed. "You had dared for my move," she said.

"And you have impressed me," he answered. "Within but weeks you have rid yourself of a titled man to become nameless—then rose to be one of the queen's ladies and now countess of Warwick."

She could not claim much effort on the last, but she was certainly proud of what she had accomplished.

"Your have gained the lifelong admiration of the Chancellor as well as the Master of the Horse."

And those two had been such achievements.

"Is it a day to recount my successes, Walsingham?"

He nodded. Walsingham sat beside her, then said, "Every hour that Chuck Bass insists on your innocence, he comes closer to drawing suspicion on himself. And now, it seems he may have used you for it all."

"That is ridiculous," she said, knowing full well that Walsingham had stayed in the Tower from the day he took her.

"I have a way of knowing what happens, even when I am not there." She did not doubt the spymaster that. Walsingham continued, "And I know that soon, Chuck Bass will fall." Blair pursed her lips. "I have men who are ready to stand up and own the crime," he said. "Once I say that I have apprehended the criminals, the queen would not doubt a word from Chuck Bass' mouth."

"And what would you have me do?"

"From the first day I saw you in court, and watched you with your fiancé Lord Marcus," Walsingham stated, "I wanted you." At the words, Blair drew away sharply. "You manipulated the Lord Chancellor, and you all but wrapped Essex around your little finger to take a place with the queen."

Blair held her breath, allowed the man to finish.

"And I have done everything in my power to have you right here where I want you. I want you to be part of my network, Lady Blair. In Spain," he added. "I need you to be my eyes and ears and observe the preparation for the Armada Invencible."

"A spy," she said softly. He nodded. "You want me to be a spy." She protested, "I am a lady of breeding and wealth."

Walsingham argued, "Your queen has no faith in you."

"Chuck Bass shall protect me."

"This shows me how eager he is to return for you," Walsingham said with a heavy volume of sarcasm. "How he rushed quickly from your marriage bed."

"His squire said there are matters he needed to complete."

"Certainly. Your husband would spend days ensuring the Waldorf legacy is in proper hands," Walsingham informed her. "Think you the earl of Warwick is such easy draw that from the very first day you arrived, he followed you and every one of your demands like a lovesick fool?"

She swallowed, then shook her head.

"Ask the queen; ask him. With your marriage he stands to gain lands that should expand his holdings. He will get the very lands he had petitioned for years."

The kisses had never felt like the negotiation for a dowry, but she never did fully learn the language of seduction.

"You were clever in your manipulation, my lady, but you were never as clever as Chuck Bass. You told him what you wanted. The first rule of the game is to keep the card faces down." The sound of metal was brief, and Walsingham placed her brooch on the table between them. "Every man has a price," he told her. "I am not a spymaster for lack of observation. I know what goes on in the court or outside. Carter Baizen is not coming back for you."

So that was his name.

She wondered what had happened to the bold spy—could have easily been killed by Walsingham's men, or could have taken a payoff and abandoned his assignment.

"Your fate, and Chuck Bass', is in your hands. Do me this job and you will gain the queen's respect." Walsingham sighed. "Bartholomew Bass must have taught you a great many lessons in your time with him. Learn one from me." And Blair saw and heard the sympathy when he stated, "Do not be fooled by the court. Each and every man has an agenda."

tbc

AN: Make me happy. Please let me know what you thought. We're just a little over halfway through the plot.


	13. Part 12

**AN: **So many people are asking for Dark Prince, and believe me I spent all yesterday trying to write it. Alas, the language of this and Dark Prince are both so uniquely their own that to force my language to switch between the two will be asking for trouble (and the beginning of the ruin of both fics). So please know I WILL write DPoM, but I will need more time and will likely even wait for this fic to complete before I switch. In the meantime, please enjoy this fic. Because I am enjoying it.

**Part 12**

It was a piece quite lovely—simple yet extravagant with the diamonds that winked, set within the white gold charms that hung from the delicate chain. When he had given it to her, it had seemed to her such a generous gift to ease her way into the queen's circle. And now the necklace—that had been so beautiful it deserved to be seen only on one as worthy as her—had become testament to Chuck Bass' intelligent choices. He was, after all, the grand investor, the smart advisor on Elizabeth's treasury.

She wondered if the jewelry that had brought her such delight was worth even a half hectare of the lands he had been granted.

Dorota sniffled, grunted in disapproval as she reluctantly folded Blair's clothes and laid them inside the chest.

They had come in the dark of the night, in Walsingham's small boat, and they slipped back into court while the rest was dead asleep.

"I shall be prepared in an hour," she had advised the spymaster.

But Walsingham insisted she take more time. "Pack your finest gowns, your most treasured jewels, countess," he told her.

And the title sounded vile now, whereas she had thought it such fortune before she knew. "I am not a countess—certainly not in Spain."

Walsingham nodded. "Do not be mistaken. Do not breathe a word that your husband is the earl of Warwick while you are there."

"I would as soon as forget that I am married. Fear not, Lord Walsingham. No one shall hear it from my lips."

Walsingham was satisfied with her assurance, and then reminded her, "Take your jewels. You do not know what cover you will need once you arrive."

And so after Walsingham turned his back, and she was as sure as any that he would be on his way to the queen, she returned to her chambers with her maid. Dorota had protested loudly at her decision. But Dorota was as steadfast and loyal to her as anyone would ever be. Indeed, she was the only real rock of her life. So her maid packed her clothes and then held Chuck Bass' gift aloft.

"Put it away," Blair instructed.

"Take it with you, my lady. It is the best in your box."

The most expensive. Certainly. Only the grandest gestures paid off, and Chuck Bass knew it well.

Blair refused, then said, "Leave it. Throw it in the furnace. Return it to Warwick." She drew her breath sharply. "I would sooner go bare than have his gold around my throat."

She was not hurt. She was simply infuriated. At least it was what she chanted in her head as little teardrops fell on the silk wrap she painstakingly folded on her lap. She had been fooled, and the numbness in her chest was but anger—not agony.

"Lady Blair," Dorota said, as she followed her instructions and placed it inside the box, "perhaps we should call your husband."

Blair glared at her maid, then snapped, "I have no husband!"

"But my lord—"

"No husband, Dorota," she insisted. Blair wet her lips, then told her maid, "You will forget him. He is but a speck of dust in my world, a tiny grain of sand that flew into my eye. He will wash away."

And even then, because Dorota was so near to her heart, Blair knew Dorota could see the drops of tears.

"A few tears, Dorota, and you shall see. It would be as if he were never here." When Dorota to her appeared heartbroken, Blair took her maid's hands and raised them to her mouth. "My Dorota, I shall miss you."

"You do not need to go, my lady," Dorota told her. And her loyalty, despite her sympathy to Chuck Bass, had always been and would always be to Lady Blair. "Let us run. We shall make our way to France, you and I."

"If I run to France, you know what they will do."

"But he is not your husband," Dorota threw back her words at her. "Let the lying earl fend for himself." And when her maid urged her, Blair knew it was not from loathing, but from fear for her.

"He has gone and schemed for my inheritance, Dorota, but he would have never tried to kill the queen. In good conscience, I cannot let him carry the burden of the crown's suspicions upon me," Blair said. She shuddered, because the burden of Tudor suspicion had been and always shall be a quick trip to the gallows and your maker.

Even in the short journey through Thames, when she had been exhausted and disturbed, and she had fallen half asleep, she had been hounded by the lord whose head had rolled onto the littered hay round the execution block. She had started, because always she would remember how her eyes had showed her instead the severed head of Chuck Bass.

She rose abruptly, then tossed the silken wrap into the chest. She shut the lid, then said to her maid, "Tell Lord Walsingham I am prepared. And I shall meet him in an hour."

Blair walked towards the windows, then pushed the curtain to the side. She peered outside and saw the river, dark and sparkling under the moonlight. Her mind was all aflutter, and her chest was tight enough that she wondered how it was that she still breathed.

Had it been so long ago, when she had bathed in the moonlight, and had his hands upon her hips, his mouth warm and tempting over hers?

At least, in that one moment, she thought, savoring the memory, when he had not known her name and she had not known his, she could swear the lips caressing hers had been honest. It was the only genuine kiss of her lifetime, and if she knew to paint it would soon become a picture. In her mind it was already immortalized.

She brushed at a single tear that had rebelled and spilled.

She heard the door creak open, waited for Dorota to tell her the hushed instructions, or at least a fevered plea. But seconds later it was quiet still, so Blair looked at the faint reflection upon the glass window. Her heart leapt to her throat when she recognized his figure lone, drinking her in.

"Is it truly you?" he said softly.

Blair turned around, and the leap of flame in his gaze almost drew her back. But she raised her chin, hardened herself against the act that was about to come. "It is I," she answered, coldly, she hoped.

And he seemed unfazed, because Chuck Bass rushed towards her and wrapped his arms around her stiff body. She breathed and for a moment closed her eyes, savoring the scent of him. And his nose was in her hair, his arms tight around her body. "You are free," he murmured, like it was prayer. "I had thought my squire lied when he woke me, but now I see he had an angel's tongue." And she abhorred that he could so easily make her wonder, cause her doubt. "Blair, listen to me."

And when he held her at arm's length, she could not help the way her gaze rose to meet his.

Perhaps she could forget.

"We will leave from here," he swore, and she almost took his hand and ran away as fast as her feet could take her.

Perhaps she never would.

"We shall be far away from the court, from the queen," he said in a rush. And then, "There are lands, Blair, fertile and green—the most beautiful you'd seen." Her heart crusted with crystal ice. Even his warm palm on her cheek did nothing to thaw her. "You love Northumbria, but you will love Warwick. I swear."

She closed her hand around his wrist and drew his hand away.

"I have proudly claimed you for my wife. The entire court knows it—" Chuck swore.

"Of course you have."

Finally, as his skin drew apart from hers, he frowned. "What is it, my love?"

"These lands, my lord—"

And even she could see the joy in his eyes, wondered if it was from the thrill of his achievement.

"Have they been granted by the queen?"

And he grinned wide. "Yours," Chuck said. "For the esteemed service of your father."

From the wedding, rushed and upon a bloody, terrible floor, where dozens had died before, a wedding that had not had banns read—a wedding with no witnesses save the two of them—

His.

"I swear to you, Blair, you will love it." His voice, warm, sluicing, spilling and dripping over her, "It lies adjacent to mine, and it is rich and sprawling, with gentle slopes." His bent low, until his lips were so close to her ear they touched. "Think of little spawns who have your face and my temper chasing one another up and down tiny hills." He breathed, then kissed her temple.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, because she did not need an image of this moment to take with her.

"Lord Warwick," she said, calm, collected, "there is no need to feign affection for me. There is no one watching."

And he straightened, looked down at her, puzzled.

She stood proudly, would not reveal herself. "Is it not for show, my lord?"

"You know it was not but you and I—the rest of the world mattered not—in our encounters."

In his chambers, outside the banquet hall, even upon the green, out in the open.

She answered, "That was the time when I was blinded. I know what you need now. There is no need for pretense." Blair realized the words were a surprise, perhaps even confusing, to a man who had believed her completely under his control. She informed him, "I make my way to Spain for now."

He took her by her arms, and then exclaimed, "Spain!"

And then, she found herself in a plea, "Chuck, stop—"

"Why?" he asked.

And if she was uncertain if he referred to the destination, or to her plea. "There is no need to lie."

And he held her steady with a hand grasping the back of her head, keeping her there, forcing her mouth open with an arduous thrust of his tongue. She did not move, but accepted his tongue and the wet kiss until her mouth was covered, and she gasped for breath.

"I do not understand," he said harshly. "There is an imminent war. If you should die—"

She gasped to catch her breath. She told him, "Worry not, my lord. If I should die, my wealth will not go to my mother. You can certainly ask the queen to bequeath them to you, like you so wish."

He blinked, and finally, after so long, drew her words together. "What?"

"Do not think you've hurt me," she said to him, proudly still. "Ask them all," she challenged. "There is a man that comes to me at night, at the Tower, since before you came and wed me for my fortune. And he came to me, Chuck," she taunted, but her eyes swelled with her tears and she wished to heaven he could not see them because he would know, so easily, that she had merely strung together a shield, "every night since you left."

"I do not believe a word you say."

And to that, she smiled grimly. "Then it is but another we have in common, my lord." Quickly, she said, "Walsingham's told me about your grand plan, Chuck. I should have expected it, yet like a fool I had believed you would spare me your manipulation."

"Like you spared me?" he exclaimed. The bitterness of his tone made her recoil. He recounted, "You flaunt your desire for a place with the queen, for Essex, for your ambition. You wanted it all save me."

"You may think that of me, but know this—I did love you, Chuck." And finished with, "Once."

"And you think I would cross the Thames and stand in the hell that took the lives of my family just for anyone?" he reasoned.

"Do not claim affection for me," she warned. And his grip on her arm was bruising now. She was grateful that it happened within her chambers, because the court would think her mad should they see her in this manner. "You did it all for ambition you have had long before me."

She pulled away, then stalked towards the door. She pulled it open then waited, a silent demand for his departure. Chuck blinked, and almost seemed at a loss still. A fine actor, she thought. He had been a worthy opponent. Any other time, she would have admired him.

Not now when it was her heart bleeding from his lies.

When he passed, he tried to touch her. She drew sharply away. She heard his almost whispered words, "However much I love you, it cannot bind you to me if you do not wish to be so bound."

It was the worst, vilest, most gruesome lie she had ever heard.

"Now you tell me you love me," she scoffed.

"I do."

"Go on. Lie to me more, my lord," she said, not meeting his eyes. "Tell me again you love me." He remained silent, not taking the bait. "Tell me you did not think to play me for a patch of land."

She wondered if it was from utter shock that she did not rise to the words he claimed, but Chuck Bass still remained mute.

"Say it," she taunted.

And all he could say was, "I will return it all to the queen if that is what you wish."

"Not good enough," Blair answered. "Tell me you did not play me," she insisted. "Tell me when I came to you in court, and you kissed me when I asked, and you took me in your arms, you did not once think of the grand and glorious return on your investment."

She let go of the door, then walked over to the bed. She took the necklace where Dorota had left it, then glanced up and almost pitied him the hopeful face. Blair returned, then thrust the gift towards him.

"I have no use for this," she said.

His hands fisted at his sides. With one last look, he strode out of her chambers, out of her life.

~o~o~o~o~

No sooner had he left her standing there, with the heavy necklace hanging from her fingers, that Blair lifted the gold and diamonds up and glared at them. She detested their beauty, and abhorred their meaning. She had delighted when once it draped on her skin because it had been proof of her triumph, and now she when her eyes rested upon it she would remember how she had been foolish.

She had been right when she swore never to be humiliated by another man again after Nathaniel's refusal in front of scores. And here she was again, fooled by Chuck Bass into a lull only to have been so betrayed.

He would never be a part of her life again. She would not allow him to be. She would have no memories, and she would sooner lose her mind than close her eyes and remember his kiss.

Blair grasped the necklace in her hand, then strode towards the superior chambers towards where the queen slept. She stopped at the door that Walsingham had spoken about and knocked.

There was no answer, and she lowered her head. It overwhelmed her, this feeling. It rose from her chest and settled on her nose, at the backs of her eyes, pressed upon her back.

She raised a fist and knocked again.

Finally, the door opened, and Blair found herself looking up at the stern, somber face of the duke of Northumberland.

"Blair," he said in recognition. His grasp on the door loosened, and Blair gasped for breath only to find it finish into a sob.

"Your grace," she whispered.

And then she felt her shoulders wrack into a heaving sob, and she propelled forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. The duke patted her back and closed the door.

"I told you," Bartholomew reminded her, "before you left. I warned you, Blair."

She nodded against his tunic. How simple it had been when they were merely riding their horses hard, pushing forward—and winning had been the sole reason for anything they did.

"Would you listen to me now?" he said patiently as she drew away. "It is time to come home."

And she wanted to. She wanted to go home so much. She wanted to lie abed carefree, and young. But her name had been shattered, the proud name of her father. But she could imagine who she would be in Northumbria—failed in her ambition, played by the man she had scarcely thought would fool her.

She was embroiled now, and matter the duke's influence he had not the power to make the past disappear.

"I can't," she said, drying her tears because for what she needed to tell her guardian, he needed to see her strong. "I am here to say goodbye, your grace. I depart within the hour."

And if the whole court knew, then certainly her guardian knew. The duke took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, then tipped her face up that she could not refuse to look at him. "He drove you away," he concluded without difficulty. "A hasty marriage, all this scandal. He has driven you away."

"You think too highly of him," she said, forcing pride into her exhausted heart. "A man cannot be solely the reason that I shall leave the court."

She had needed a man to join—and Marcus had served his purpose. But a man could not be why she left.

"I shall detest him for this," Bartholomew said gently, and she knew he did not believe his words. And rightly so.

"You love him," she reminded the duke. Blair swallowed, then said quietly, "There is too much I cannot grasp, your grace. But I shall do everything in my power that I may survive this court. So I shall do what Lord Walsingham needs."

"What does the spymaster need from you?" Bartholomew asked.

"More than my life hangs in the balance," she said, her refusal to confide more. And then she admitted, "But I do not trust him. I do not trust any man." Blair did not need to limit her words. This was Bartholomew, who loved her like a daughter but she knew, if he needed to, there was one he loved and treasured, and would choose over her. "When I leave, and Walsingham accuses your son, I will instruct Dorota to hand you his freedom."

Bartholomew shook his head. "What is it?"

"It is my confession to the crime."

Bartholomew gave a humorless laugh.

"I do not do this for Chuck," she spat. "I would sooner he were out of my mind." She told her guardian. "I shall do this for you. Should they accuse your son and you do nothing you will never forgive yourself."

"I would sooner burn it," he told her.

"You will not."

"You are my daughter."

"But first, he is your son," she said firmly. "You will not allow another Bass to be executed by a Tudor, your grace. I know you well enough to know—it is the truth."

Bartholomew walked with her back to her chambers, and the duke stiffened at the sight of Lord Walsingham waiting outside her door beside her maid. She felt, rather than saw, the protest in her guardian. The duke grasped her by her elbow. Before he could object, she turned and grasped his hand.

She waved Dorota over, and very surreptitiously she drew the note from within Dorota's sleeve. She placed it within Bartholomew's hand.

"Fear not for me," she whispered.

And when the words fell from her lips, his eyes creased. "How could I not?"

So she lied to him, the way she had never lied before, "There is a man, your grace. He is strong, and he would lay his life for mine." It was music, it would be music to the old man's ears. "His name is Carter," she said, drawing from the lost spy who was likely dead and gone. But still he needed to hear it, because he was Bartholomew and he had cared for her since her father died. "Be at peace, your grace. I know what it is that I do."

tbc


	14. Part 13

**Part 13**

The gold coin was hard inside her fist. It was a rose, carved into gold, crudely, but more beautiful than the finest arts she had seen. And Jenny had only ever seen art through Lady Rose. The mansion in France where the lady resided was rich like the French court—or so she had heard. She had not earned enough of her keep to gain access to the grand ballrooms of Queen Catarina, but any of the other women who were in Lady Rose's service, who had been special enough, or been given assignments that required presence in court, told her of the comparison.

And so Jenny wandered the hallways of Lady Rose's mansion, drank in the paintings of the masters that lined the corridors. From the countless dinners that Lady Rose hosted, Jenny met with the finest intellectuals, men and women who would have tossed her a coin on the street had they met her before Lady Rose discovered her.

"Find the Romanian," Lady Rose told her, as she placed the cool gold coin in her hand.

"I will, my lady."

When she fulfilled this, and she returned, Lady Rose would be so grateful to her service that she might be invited to stay around. The longer she was there, the more she would learn—and she would be privileged above all in her class to have heard the music of the court, spoken to philosophers.

Every other spy in Lady Rose's mansion had grown in body and in my mind, and Jenny would be foolish not to take advantage of the opportunity working for Lady Rose would provide.

When Jenny turned to board the ship, it was Lady Rose who called for her from her litter. Jenny walked back towards her, and Lady Rose parted the black veil to reveal her face. The rosary beads sat on her lap, and Jenny caught her breath when the lady wrapped it around her wrist.

"Thank you," she said, because the rosary was precious, ever-present. They did not mean to Jenny what it meant to Lady Rose, and it made the present more special. "I will treasure it, Lady Rose."

"May He keep you," said Lady Rose.

"I will keep it with me in my search for Carter," she said, referring to the lost spy.

They had not heard from him too long. The last missive he had sent had given Lady Rose such delight, and Jenny had thought she was unnecessary. Lady Rose had taken her under her wing for her heart, she said, but Jenny knew it was because she needed an English spy—an innocent girl who would be under no suspicion of anything.

"I would not send my lamb into a pack of wolves for Carter Baizen," Lady Rose admitted.

She was about to board, and of a sudden her mission changed. Jenny frowned. "My lady, am I not to rescue your favorite?"

"Not even for Carter Baizen shall I send you to England." Lady Rose had spoken of a treasure, for which Carter had been sent. So Jenny hazarded, "For that which he seeks, my lady?"

It was then that Lady Rose unfurled Carter Baizen's missive. Lady Rose had held it close to her heart, slowed no one else to touch it. Yet now she turned the script towards Jenny. Jenny shook her heart. Shamed, she admitted, "I cannot read, my lady." Despite the lessons she had been given, the script was too flamboyant for a starter. She did not wish to be pulled from the assignment, but she could soon be with the revelation.

Yet Lady Rose merely nodded, then told her, "Only Carter knows this mission, and now so do you. I trust you will speak of this with no one."

"No one, my lady," Jenny swore.

"If you should not find Carter Baizen in England," Lady Rose informed her, "it is well. Carter can rise from the dust reborn. He has done so many a time." And the spymaster told her, "I would that you search for my treasure." Lady Rose held the missive up, "This letter, Jenny, tells me that she is in Elizabeth's court."

"She?" Jenny breathed.

And the hopeful tears in Eleanor's eyes were enough to freeze her heart. She was Lady Rose's favorite now, her little lamb, the only spy in the mansion who joined the lady in her prayers. Jenny had not been jealous of Carter, despite that all proclaimed him to be her favorite. And now, there was a 'she.'

"My daughter."

Lady Rose had told her that she had chosen her for her heart, and Jenny felt that very heart rebel. She repeated, "I am to go to England to find your daughter, Lady Rose?"

Lady Rose nodded. She placed a hand upon Jenny's cheek, and Jenny knew the lady felt the tears that came unbidden from her eyes. "You understand, Jenny, how much I long to take my Blair into my arms?"

Finally, Jenny understood the need for Carter Baizen, the secret letters, the intimacy with which Lady Rose had treated her. The spymaster needed the most loyal. She conditioned and lulled Jenny into a blind love to groom a spy worthy of this task.

And the poor, innocent that she had been, Jenny had seen her as a mother.

"I understand, my lady. I do. I had lost a mother," she said, knowing that Lady Rose would think it was because she was an orphan.

So Jenny sat, alone in the London bar, just outside where the queen held court. For the first time in a while, she was alone again. She so missed Lady Rose's mansion, where all around her there was beauty from the statuesque spies that Lady Rose allowed to live with her while waiting for assignment, to the sculptures and portraits from masters around the Continent.

Jenny nursed the warm ale, and wished she were back in Paris where she sipped fine wine.

Truly, now that she knew what it entailed, she abhorred the assignment. She wished she would find Carter Baizen quickly, or that she would learn that this Lady Blair Waldorf had gone and died, or married. The soonest she could return to take her place with Lady Rose, the best.

Bawdy laughter erupted from behind her, and she glanced and found young men, crude lordlings and newly-proclaimed knights, she thought, spewing forth verses that were lost in the air.

"They speak about your golden hair."

Jenny looked to the left, in shock, at the pleasant-faced boy who seemed around her age. Jenny looked him up and down, then dismissed him for a servant.

"If only they would write it down," the boy continued. "Some of the verses are well done. 'Tis a pity they would all be forgotten come morning and sobriety."

The boy took a mug of ale, then tipped it into his mouth. Jenny quickly glanced away.

"Eric," he said, then held out a hand. "I could not help but notice you alone. It is uncommon," he said, "to find a young lady of breeding alone in such a place."

Her chest swelled at the words. She smiled, then turned and placed a hand in his. Eric kissed her knuckles. "Jenny," she answered. "What would you know of well-bred ladies, Eric?"

"I work for the earl of Warwick," he said proudly. "In court."

An entry to court, Jenny thought.

"And working for Lord Chuck Bass means meeting a great many well-bred ladies," he pointed out. And then, with an air of sadness, he confided, "None more so than my lord's wife. But alas, fortune has taken her away from him."

Jenny put down the mug of ale on the bar. She had heard of the earl of Warwick, knew the wealth and the power that came with the title. Everyone certainly, no matter the education, knew of the kingmakers of England.

Lady Rose was one way to her desires, but if by some stroke of misfortune Carter Baizen had managed to find Lady Blair, then Jenny needed to secure her future. She had seen her father upon her mother's death, watched the destruction that had followed after. Jenny knew there was no time when a man was more vulnerable than he was at the heels of losing love.

The rogue on her lips was no waste, because she drew her mouth into a smile as old as love itself.

At least, that was how another spy of Lady Rose described it, and she had worked the cover of a French prince's concubine for four years.

"Perhaps, Eric, you can take me to court with you."

~o~o~o~

"Blair," came the quiet, uncertain, familiar voice.

Blair drew her wrap more tightly around her body, then gasped when she saw the tall woman emerging from the shadows. She hastily wiped away her tears. "Serena!" she said in recognition. Her heart leapt at the recognition of a friend, her only friend in court. But Dorota's words haunted her, and she asked, "Is it true? Have you said such lies about me?"

Serena nodded, then told her. "It was Lord Walsingham's instructions, Blair."

"And you follow blindly, when I had thought we were friends," Blair said accusingly. Had it not been for Serena's lie, she would—

Still be dancing with Lord Bass.

Perhaps the lie was for the best, and she had learned of Chuck Bass' manipulation much sooner, before she fell into a love so deep she would not recover.

"He is Elizabeth's spymaster," Serena explained, "and we are all trained to protect the queen at any and all cost."

"Why do you need me?" Blair said bitterly, with a tinge of accusation. "You are so talented at what you do."

"Serena has been compromised," Lord Walsingham told her as they made their way to the ship. He was covered well, and rightly so. They approached the Spanish ship. "The girl likes her men, and the last mission she had done she has—I believe—thrown caution to the wind and had an affair with one of Philip's navy generals."

"He was a good-looking man, my lord." Serena grinned at Blair. She took it so lightly, Blair thought. She had no knowledge of what she had destroyed. Her eyes stung with the grain of sand that would not wash away. "Should you see him, you shall believe me. What strength of will it would take to deny a man like him."

Yet for the mission she had denied the only man—

Blair thought for certain she would be blinded, because her eyes filled and she had the memory of Chuck Bass' face at the back of her eyelids. She walked abruptly away, because Serena's words were heavy in her heart. For one flirtation, for a man, for a mistake that Serena van der Woodsen had done, Walsingham had moved the chess pieces and entrapped her.

She was a pawn, when in Chuck Bass' lying, manipulative arms, she had been a queen.

Walsingham followed close behind her, and when he called she faced him.

"There is no need to keep such close tabs, Lord Walsingham," she said. "I cannot run. I have nowhere to run. You made certain of that."

The spymaster knew his trade, and he nodded in sympathy then waved her forward. "Once you fulfill this assignment, your standing with the queen will rise. You shall be a hero in your own right. Is that not what you want, countess?"

"I know no combat, offense or defense. The queen's regard is well and good, but is useless if I do not return alive," she told him.

"Serena will protect you."

"You want me to entrust my life to the woman who had caused this ruin?" Blair glanced at the lady-in-waiting who had been her friend, and finally recognized the guilt in her eyes. The earlier words had been pretense, part of a cover that Walsingham had created. Finally, she saw the friend to whom she could confide. She wondered how long this mission was. "Walsingham," she said. "Do not call me countess again."

Walsingham lowered in head in acquiescence.

Blair looked down, and saw Serena's hand close around hers. "I'm sorry," Serena whispered into her ear.

"I know," Blair replied, then drew her hand out of Serena's. "Maybe I will forgive you."

"Will you forgive me," Serena said, "if I told you how Chuck Bass near killed me for my lies?"

Blair blinked, because the grain was back and stung so painfully. "No," she replied firmly. "I will never speak of him with you."

~o~o~o~

When his palms hit the floor, the pain was nothing still compared to the paralyzing ache in his heart. The men had taken him from right outside his chambers and marched him towards the queen, and even then Chuck stumbled along, his head muddled by too much wine.

When he was on his hands and knees, he looked up blearily at the dark sight of Elizabeth's fury.

Chuck heard his father stride into the room, but his attention was caught by his queen. Beside Elizabeth's throne stood Walsingham. Certainly it meant that she was gone.

"The Spanish envoys?" the queen demanded.

And despite her furious glare Chuck knew the queen spoke to Cecil. From behind him, Cecil answered, "Gone."

"With her?" the queen demanded.

And through the haze of his brain he recognized the conversation, and why he had been thrown at the queen's feet. Walsingham responded, "In the same ship, your majesty. The Spaniards have departed on the same ship as Lady Blair."

The cold eyes of the queen narrowed at him. "And yet you insisted on her freedom," she said. "Are you a traitor? I do not doubt it." Chuck struggled to rise, and the queen bellowed. "You will kneel before me, Bass!"

"I know nothing of this, your majesty."

Blair. Blair. Sailed to Spain.

"Walsingham—" he choked.

"Lord Walsingham has warned the crown over and over about your treacherous wife. And you," the queen spat. "It is a foolish man who does not learn from history. I should have known treason pulses in your veins." The queen nodded behind him, knew that it was his father coming forward. "And I had thought given your father's most loyal service you had learned to love your sovereign."

The queen turned her back on Chuck.

To Walsingham, she said, "Throw him in the Tower. There is no need for trial. I will sign a warrant."

And all that he heard in his head was her name. He could not protest, and he was dragged up to his feet. Essex looked on in horror. Then Chuck saw his father walk to the queen, with his hands fisted to his sides.

"Your majesty, spare him. This shall prove to you that my son had no knowledge of this treason."

Chuck studied his father's face, saw the ashen skin around his neck. The queen took the paper and scanned the contents, then met his gaze.

"You are a fool, Bass," the queen pronounced. Since he saved the kingdom's treasury, it was the first time that Elizabeth had looked down on him. "To have been played by a slip of a girl." She handed the paper to Walsingham. "Lady Blair's confession."

Bartholomew sighed in relief.

"You are banned from my presence," she said, "until the day when you are back to your senses, sharp as who I believed you to be."

Chuck blinked, and felt himself released. He wobbled at his feet, full to overflowing with wine. He felt Essex's hand hold him up, and was grateful for the support.

"She can kill us," Essex said into his ear. "Take care, Bass, and be fortunate to keep away."

Elizabeth had all the power. It was true. And he had come close to the axe. It was a shame though, because Blair had already taken his heart in her hands and crushed it dead.

Next he knew, Chuck found himself lying in bed in his father's chambers. Eric pushed chests of his clothing into Bartholomew's room. By the door, his father handed coins to the stable master and instructed for the horses to be prepared for a journey.

A young blonde girl stepped inside with a heaping dish. While the rest occupied themselves with preparation for departure, she sat beside him on the bed and offered the food with both hands.

"My lord, have some meat," she said. "It should settle your stomach."

His eyes flickered to the food, and he swallowed. The queen could have very well sent her with poisoned meat.

The girl smiled, then with her fingers took some of the food. Her mouth opened and she chewed on a piece of rabbit.

"Peasant food," he said. She moved back in shock. "Who are you?"

Her hand fluttered to his thigh. "My name is Jenny. And I am your squire's new friend. I have but come to care for you, my lord, whilst all the others have not the time."

When she applied gentle pressure, Chuck stood abruptly, then called his father. The duke turned back, and nodded. "You have slept off your idiocy," Bartholomew acknowledged. He turned to Eric, who silently pulled Jenny out the door and closed it behind them. When they were alone in the chambers, Bartholomew continued, "You are never to imbibe as much that you cannot fight for your own life."

He spoke the way he always did, harsh, commanding, expecting too much when Chuck knew he could do little. Even now, with his heart trampled, Bartholomew spoke without sympathy.

It was the weakest defense, but it was the only one that was in his mind, "She used me." It tore at him, like little raven claws. "She accused me of manipulating her, and I had done it, forgotten it." It was the utmost humiliation to be telling his father, after he had so proudly left Northumbria to stake his claim in the world. "She was deceiving little liar," he said. "A place with the queen." He scoffed. "But this!"

In a measured voice, his father reminded him, "She saved your bloody neck."

"She has confessed to the crime!"

"It matters not," Bartholomew argued. "She gained her end. You are free, and there is no suspicion upon your head." Bartholomew glared at him. "How could you wed a girl knowing so little about her?"

"So little?" he demanded. "I know her." Chuck shook his head. "I had been fooled before, but now I see her. No one knows her more than I do—until the littlest treacherous bone in her body."

Bartholomew grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him up.

Yet even then, he could not hold the anger for long. "Is it the truth?" he asked softly. Chuck wished he could see the letter, touch it, hear her voice as he read it. Perhaps then the doubt would abate. "Did she use me to reach the queen?"

"What do you think?"

"I cannot think," he admitted. "I cannot see it." And then, he pleaded, "Tell me, your grace, that it is true. Tell me she has betrayed me from the first." Since he left he never thought he would beg his father for anything.

"You are so convinced—"

Words. They were merely words. Words to keep him sane. "Tell me she had not claimed this crime only for me."

The ashen grayness of his father's face was apparent to him still, and the lines in the corners of his eyes deepened. Bartholomew's voice was exhausted when he said, "Why, son? What would you do?"

He tightened his jaw. Chuck placed a hand on his father's shoulder, then swore, "I will storm the queen's chambers. I will demand Walsingham's—"

His father abruptly cut him off with his decision. "We depart for Northumbria. I do not trust to leave you alone."

"If she confessed in a lie—" he said.

"There is no need to put your life on the line with the queen. She did not confess for you," Bartholomew told him, his voice calming. "She near got you killed."

Yet if she did, the very existence of the confession in his father's possession bore a hole through the very argument. "No," he said. He was not one to scurry to the Highlands, not when she was out there. He could not tell if she had betrayed him or not, could not say if he trusted her at all. "I will find her," he swore.

"You will sail to Spain?" Bart demanded. Chuck neither nodded nor shook his head, and it was enough for his father to understand. "You are the earl of Warwick, as close to the Tudor throne as anyone. Spain will flay you to death before you draw a breath."

It could very well be, but his wife—and she was his wife whether she claimed it or not—he had wed her in the eyes of God—the queen, the rituals, the witnesses be forgotten—was alone upon the Channel surrounded by the enemy.

"I will sail to the edge of the world if that is how to find her," he swore.

tbc

_Read and review, ladies! Thanks._


	15. Part 14

**Part 14**

She had the face of an innocent child. Her frame was delicate, and the wind whipped through her golden hair leaving a tight appearance of vulnerability clinging to her cheekbones. When his squire had pleaded with him to take the slip of a girl as he crossed the Channel, Chuck had taken one look at the resolute hardness in Jenny's eyes and nodded.

When Chuck Bass looked at Jenny Humphrey, in moments like this, when she seemed so small against the harsh backdrop of the sea, he had to hope that there was someone out in the chill of the morning who sought to keep his wife safe. Until he reached her, he would that some other soul cared for her. And if only for repayment he took the girl under his wing.

"Return to your cabin," he instructed her. The water was too violent, and the traders on the ship—who had no loyalty to England or to Spain—appeared too enamored of the angelic figure that slipped across the boards. It was far safer perhaps to take a military ship, but canons were heavy and would slow a ship. He had no doubt the ship that Blair had taken coursed through the sea at a tiresome pace while the merchant ship sailed quickly to trade more.

"I shall," she responded, her thin voice almost immediately lost upon the wind.

Jenny reached his side, as the ship lunged forward in the choppy waters, and stumbled at the abrupt force under her feet. She grabbed his arm, and he reached for her waist to prop her back to her feet. The girl's hair had fallen onto her face, and she shook it back to reveal lips shining pink despite the dry coolness of the air.

"Thank you, my lord," she said to him.

Her large eyes drank him, and Chuck moistened his lips as he set her forward. "It was nothing."

"This is everything, my lord," she insisted. "To me. That you would be so kind to take me with you."

"It was foolish," he replied. But Eric had been adamant, and had pleaded on the girl's behalf. "When we reach land in Spain my life is in danger. One breath of my name, and I shall vanish into the Hapsburg dungeons." He shook his head. "And I agreed to take another soul with me."

And then she unfolded from her arm a small thick blanket that she laid upon his shoulders. She smiled up at him, and he realized what had made her brave the top deck.

He had not wished for argument, had not entertained long discussion. When he decided to sail for Blair, he needed to leave within the hour.

The sooner he arrived in Spain, after all, the shorter the time when she would be exposed, alone, in enemy territory.

The girl closed her hand around his—she did so frequently. For a long time he pulled away, but he was tired now, and her skin provided a little warmth.

"I had come to London for my cousin, but he is gone missing," she told him. "And news has reached me that he has gone to Spain. So I need to go, and then I shall leave for France and home." And her eyes were large and moist as she said, "I have not anyone else in the world."

He closed his eyes, imagining his Blair—angry and lost, with no one to depend. She needed no man, she had proudly claimed. And yet, in her cry of rage she had confessed she had loved him.

And he had betrayed her.

"No one, my lord," Jenny whispered. "No one save you."

And then the girl was in his arms, with her arms around his neck, her lips slanting against his. Chuck stood frozen, unresponsive.

And then his hands reached for her arms and he forcefully, intentionally, pulled her off and tore his mouth from hers. She blinked up at him, then grasped at the front of his shirt. He exclaimed, "What are you doing?"

"Please, my lord," she begged, her eyes shining with her tears. "I will do anything," she swore. "Keep me with you." She finished with a soft, "I do not wish to be alone."

He reached up and with the back of his hand wiped the wetness from his mouth. "I will not send you away," he told her, "because you are a young woman and you are alone. But remember, Jenny, to take care. This you cannot do," he told her firmly, referring to the kiss that had been given.

"But I would do anything—" she insisted. "Tell me what you wish, my lord. There is nothing free in this world. So I will pay my fare as long as I reach my destination."

Chuck's hand tightened around her arm. "You believe it now, that there is nothing that matters but the end. Believe me, Jenny, however the world appears to you. That is not true."

~o~o~o~

With her head low, and the silk wrap clutched in tense fingers, Lady Blair descended from the Spanish. The grueling journey hung upon her shoulders like dank, dripping exhaustion sluicing down the curves of her back. When Serena laid a hand on her shoulder, Blair stiffened then drew away.

"We need a roof over our heads," she said softly, careful not to speak out loud. There would be too many questions when people heard her. And once again she wondered how Walsingham, for all his grand experience, thought that she could become a convincing spy in Spain.

Then, she heard Serena speak in fluid Spanish, and ask to be brought to a hotel. At least, she had some use. She was tired and so was grateful. Serena drew out in the crowded docks a small purse and fished for a coin.

It happened quite suddenly. Her eyes widened when she saw a ragged boy accost her companion, sending Serena's purse bursting, the coins flying onto the muddy ground. Blair felt the man close his hand over her mouth, and she struggled at once while a hard arm fastened itself over her stomach. Serena sprawled onto the mud, and Blair was lifted off her feet and dragged away.

Spain. They were in Spain, and no cry for help would serve if they were the enemy.

She felt the hard wall hit her back and she squeezed her eyes shut in terror as the shadowed figure loomed into view.

She was to die, and she was to die in foreign soil. She prayed it would be quick, this death. She feared not the pain—the last weeks had been more painful in life than what death could possibly be. If it was to be a knife, she hoped the dagger was clean and sharp. Rust and a dull point would only make it more gruesome and she wished only to be dispatched quickly. Beneath the closed eyelids she pictured Northumbria—imagined she was atop a hill like she had been many times before, surveying the marshes and the wide lands she loved.

And she could see him there, down below, where he had never been before. He rode his own steed, charging towards her place.

She picked up her heavy skirts, and she laughed. She laughed at the sight of him, and it was merry, bubbling, overflowing. Chuck Bass rode his horse towards her place on the hillock, and she kneed her own mare down towards him.

"My lady," came the quiet voice.

Blair started awake from the death dream she had created in her mind. Her murderer had said her name, knew her. Walsingham's intelligence may not have been as secretive as he had supposed. She opened her eyes and found herself looking into a familiar gaze.

His hand slid away from her mouth. "You," she breathed. "You are here. Walsingham said—"

"I have served Lady Rose for years," he told her. "A threat or violence from the old man shall not undo my vow to your mother."

A rush of warmth fell over her. She blinked away stinging pain in her eyes. Perhaps in a death dream her foolish heart conjured his image, but Chuck Bass was gone from her life. Perhaps this would be easier.

"I learned where Walsingham had sent you, and I am here to take you to France, Lady Blair," he told her.

She felt him stiffen over her, and Blair's eyes widened when she heard the cold, calculated warning. It was Serena's voice that came and commanded, "Step away from her." Blair's eyes shifted low and saw Serena holding a dagger to his rib. "Carter Baizen," Serena said coldly, "you are not going to interfere with my mission again."

"You," he pointed out, "are interfering with mine." Carter—Blair assumed that Serena called him correctly—shook his head. "You cannot even protect her from petty thieves at the dock."

"I found her, did I not?"

Quickly, within the blink of an eye, Carter grabbed Serena's wrist and twisted until she dropped the dagger. "I will not trust you with her life," he told Serena. "You brought this all upon her."

"I was doing my job!" Serena argued.

Blair straightened from the wall.

"Loyalty before a mission. Each and every time," Carter said firmly. "Until you learn it you will be half the spy I am."

She looked from the lady-in-waiting who had betrayed her to the queen, to the stranger who had twice offered to take her away. This was her life and her honor at stake, and the two who had the most likelihood of saving her were wrapped in their own argument. Blair picked up her ruined wrap, then made her way back towards the docks. Perhaps she could still salvage her belongings as the crew unloaded it from the docks.

She made it halfway back to the ship when the two caught up with her. It was Serena who sidled up next to her, but she could feel Carter following her steps.

"Blair, please do not venture out on your own. Not yet. We need to find the lay of the land," Serena said quietly.

Blair's eyes narrowed, but she continued on her way. "I will learn what I need to learn for Lord Walsingham," she responded. "And then I will be reinstated. I shall clear my father's name—one that you had ruined with your lies."

"Then she will make her way to Paris," Carter said from behind her.

Paris. It was a place she had not thought to retire, when every time she thought of a future she thought of her guardian's plans for her.

But Northumbria was not hers. No matter what Bartholomew wanted, Northumbria would always be Chuck's. Even as she knew all this, until now she thought she would return to those vast lands that she already thought was her own and retire there.

When their possessions had been loaded onto a carriage, Serena looked to Carter. At once, Carter Baizen reached for his purse and drew out his coins. "And Walsingham entrusted you as Lady Blair's protector?" he said pointedly. To Blair, he said, "I have an established cover here in Spain, still as envoy. I know the Spanish delegation from London as well. I can protect you. We have no need of Serena."

Blair glanced at Serena, in her muddy gown, as the woman glared at Carter. "And what of her?"

"She can fend for herself," Carter answered. "Certainly Walsingham has trained her for any incident."

Blair turned her back on Serena, then said to Carter, "Tell her where to meet us. If she makes her way then I shall know she is equipped for the assignment."

Inside the carriage, Carter laid back on the hard surface of the seat. She touched the rough carving on the door, remembering the jeweled embellishments of Chuck's carriage.

"When we are in France, you shall see," he said. "You will live like the princess that you deserve to be," Carter assured her. "Queen Catarina would not give you less."

"Paris," she said idly.

And he with more convinction. "Paris."

"I always thought I would raise my family, retire, and die in Northumbria," she said.

"You have?" he asked, puzzled.

"Perhaps it was the way my guardian spoke of the land. But I had grown to love it," she said, "and always thought it was my home."

"Bartholomew Bass has conditioned you to think Northumbria was yours," Carter told her, "when all along it would ever be Chuck Bass' inheritance." He shook his head. "I would not claim to understand the old man," he told her. "But know your own inheritance in Paris and in Italy shall render all of Northumbria inadequate."

Blair licked her lips. Her mother had been gone so long, and despite her desire to find her, had never understood why Eleanor had left her when she had been so young. Only her mother could tell her that, because it involved her father. But perhaps this Carter Baizen could answer.

"Why?" she asked. "Why is there an inheritance?"

"Lady Rose—"

"Did she wed?" Blair interrupted.

And Carter nodded. "You have a father in France, Blair, and a brother."

And it sat ill with her, because first there had been Harold whom she deeply loved and then there was Bartholomew who loved her like his daughter.

"Your mother, when she wed Harold Waldorf, abandoned her family in Florence, Blair," he told her. "But everyone knew it would fall apart. Eleanor was meant for so much more than the austere life your father had for her. While Lady Rose's sister gave birth to kings of France, your mother was founding a short-lived marriage to a petty lord."

She held up a hand. "Carter," she said, "I fear you speak unfairly, for a man who had only ever heard the tale. I would wait for my mother to tell me if you please."

So Carter nodded, and they slipped into comfortable silence. Blair took in the countryside of Spain and thought to herself how very similar it was to England. They reached a paved road, and Blair looked out in awe of magnificent golden statues and proud buildings. She looked back at Carter. "Do you see this?"

He grinned, then nodded. "We are on our way to the Spanish court, querida," he said, slipping easily into a Spanish-tinged accent, inhabiting another persona. "I am, as Philip's ambassadors to England know, a Romanian courtier."

Blair nodded, fascinated at the change. He drew himself a little differently, smiled in a different way, his tone a little higher than it had been. The carriage stopped, and he helped her alight in front of a grand domed building that would house them.

"If this is what you need, then I will pave your entry into the Spanish court as my wife."

The word was too painful, even then. "I am no man's wife," she said sharply.

He seemed surprised. After all, she thought, Walsingham had made him disappear on the night she wed Chuck Bass. And she was grateful that the heartbreak at the very least was a secret to the court. "And what of—your—I will not say the name lest there are those listening." She was reminded of the horrible threat that hung on the title. "Here in Spain they would rather…"

"He is not my husband."

And for one terrible moment, as two representatives from Philip's court strode enthusiastically towards them, pumping their hands and embracing Carter, kissing her hand, she was possessed with an overwhelming urge to blurt—"I am the countess of Warwick, and my husband is Chuck Bass."

She shook away the thought—knowing it was evident of a death wish, or at the very least a desire to see that death dream in which she and Chuck met halfway down a hillock in Northumbria.

"Tell me the mission," Carter told her as he led her towards the doorway. "The sooner we find out the intelligence you need, the sooner I fulfill my own assignment."

Blair turned around, and looked at Carter. Her attention was caught when a luxurious carriage stopped behind their simple, hired one. She wondered why, but in silence she was captivated by the glossy, finished body as it rolled to a halt. Even Carter turned to watch.

And then…

Blair's eyes widened when he alighted from the carriage. She caught her breath, then dug her fingers into Carter's arm. She watched as Chuck Bass turned back and assisted a young woman out of the carriage.

Blair would never make for a fine spy. She considered that at once when she found herself striding out and making her way towards the new arrival. Behind her, she heard Carter speak in Spanish to the representatives, explaining her action perhaps. She could not care to determine what it was he said. The blonde saw her and nodded towards her, and when Chuck Bass turned around and saw her, he smiled.

And his smile reminded her of home, of moonlit kisses, of tears.

Even as she stalked towards him she felt the pleasure-pain of being near.

She ignored the young woman, and instead demanded from him. "What are you doing here?"

The smile vanished. "What do you think," and quietly, "countess?"

She drew back, appalled that he would use the title. "Leave," she instructed. "One word and I can get you killed—" And then, low in her throat, close to his ear where she was certain no one else could hear, --"Warwick." She realized the mistake belatedly, because she drew a breath and was overwhelmed by his familiar scent.

Before she drew away, he caught her arm and kept her close. "You could not even abandon me in England," he said, speaking of the confession. "You would not say a word."

She scoffed, tried to pull her arm away. "You trust me then."

"You love me," he said fluidly.

"That is preposterous!" she snapped. "I hate you."

"Too oft 'tis the same thing," he whispered in return. Finally, he released her arm, and she glared up at him. "Come home with me."

"Never."

She whirled around, and then saw Carter watching them. She hurried back to him and felt Chuck's eyes boring deep into her skull.

"Calm yourself," Carter warned her, and for the first time she saw her mother's spy displeased with someone other than Serena van der Woodsen, "lest your own instincts cause both of your demise."

Blair glanced back, and saw the young woman rub a hand up and down his arm—her husband's arm. Her lips thinned. To Carter, she said, "If he is ever endangered he has brought it upon himself. He has no reason to be in Spain!"

tbc

AN: Tell me what you thought…


	16. Part 15

**AN: **As always, let me know what you think. Drop me a line.

**Part 15**

Even his eyes were insufferable. She could feel Chuck watching her, like his gaze was a mess that clung to her body and draped over her, sluicing down every curve and crevice—much like the touches that turned her skin treacherous and burning. She wondered what name he used, what cover. Without Carter Baizen there was no way she could have infiltrated Philip's court and for that reason alone she was grateful to the man. Whatever Chuck Bass' identity in the Spanish court she hoped to heaven it was grounded and solid. She had no wish—no matter how much she abhorred him to his very toes—to watch his head roll across the Spanish court's shiny pebbled yard.

"Don Cristobal de Moura," Carter said, pointing a glass towards a new arrival. "One of Philip's secretaries, well trusted. It would do you well to begin your mission with him."

Blair swallowed, needing to forget another pair of eyes. "He will know about the Armada," she said. "To be certain, we can find answers from him."

She had chased after information for hours, and had begun with the duke of Medina-Sedonia, to no avail. He was appointed Admiral of the Armada, and even as he strode into Philip's court with a rolled missive the man did not as much as glance in her direction. Walsingham was insane, she thought. There was no way she could perform the task at hand.

Serena van der Woodsen was indeed a spectacular spy. No sooner had she and Carter abandoned her at the docks—with guilt for which Blair turned and rolled for lack of sleep—had Serena made her way to court on the arm of a Spanish gentleman who appeared infatuated. For all intents and purposes, the woman was a cat. Place her in a sack and throw her in the middle of nowhere and she would find her way back to where she needed.

"Would you care for a whirl on the dance floor?"

Blair started when Carter handed her a glass of wine, but received it with a murmur of thanks. She turned and watched the handsome couples with their measured steps, watched the somber faces and recognized at once who did not know the dance by heart. She could see it in their faces, the way they counted, the breaths they took together with the beat.

"I know not this dance," she answered.

And she hated liars but she lied, because she recognized the count, knew when it was that the man's and woman's hands would brush briefly, expected the moment the escort placed his hands on his partner's waist, and held her breath the second that the woman leapt into the air. She had danced it many times before in front of the queen, and remembered the scandalous way Chuck Bass' body pressed onto hers.

"I have seen you dance this in court," Carter reminded him. She had forgotten that he had been there. After all, his skill most valued of all was his anonymity, his ability to blend and be missed. "But you only—"

"—Ever danced with Chuck Bass," interjected Serena.

At the sound of the name Carter drew up and quietly hissed, in warning, "Do you have a death wish, Serena?"

The blonde shrugged, and with a sharp glare, answered, "Should I be heard, I have the protection of my escort."

"Should you be heard," Carter corrected her, "they would drag Lady Blair into the Hapsburg dungeons. You are incompetent, and should not have been given this mission."

Perhaps she had accepted the ceaseless argument between the two, and so Blair merely wandered away from the impending storm. She felt his gaze still, from where he stood far away from her on the other corner of the large hall. At the very front of the banquet hall, sitting upon their magnificent thrones, King Philip and Princess Isabella, appeared awash with light, glowing from the reflection of their gold scepters and the golden shadows of their jeweled crowns. Yet even as she basked in the beauty she could feel Chuck Bass on her skin. From a distance still she felt his breath on her.

She kept to the wall as she moved and the farther she walked, the closer he felt. From across the dance floor she watched him watching her, and as the lively music played, his eyes clung to hers—teasing her almost because the silent conversation came to life in her mind.

His voice—she would never forget.

When his lips curved, she saw it clearly. Distance was null and she almost heard him say, 'Do you remember this dance?'

In her head, she rebelled and snapped, and she swore it showed on her face because his smirk grew larger in return. 'No.'

'You remember it. I know for the flush around your pretty neck.'

She downed the glass of wine that Carter had handed her, then placed the container on a window sill. The fermented grape worked its way into her body and filled her head so that when she looked back towards the other end of the room where Chuck Bass had been, there was nothing. Blair fanned herself and pulled at the collar of her gown. She made her way out of the hall and out to the corridors. It was air that she needed to clear her head, air to breathe and loosen the tightness in her chest.

When she emerged out into the garden, where statues glowed under the moonlight, it was cool air that teased the sweat on her skin. There was a merry, comforting noise from a fountain at the center of the garden. Blair walked over the dewy grass, off the pathway created by the strewn pebbles, then sat on the edge of the fountain.

"Always, it should be the moon and the dark," she heard.

Blair looked up and saw Chuck Bass standing on the pathway, watching her. "It is, is it not?" Perhaps it spoke volumes of them, that they should always find each other in the darkness, away from prying eyes. Perhaps it told them that there was no place for them out of hiding.

His voice was gentle, and she wondered why it was that he did not demand when she knew he believed he had the right. "Carter Baizen, Blair?"

Where he found the name she did not know. She had not known the man's name until Serena's angry exclamation at the pier. But she nodded, then answered, "Carter Baizen."

"Are you so full of hatred that you would lie with a man out of spite for me?" he asked, and still she wondered how it was his voice was calm.

For whatever his reason, it made her answer softly as well. "I told you," she said. "I would never trust a man again."

He sighed, then stepped off the pebbles and sat beside her on the edge of the fountain. She stiffened in her seat, because almost immediately did she feel the warmth of his body. He did not speak, and so her posture grew more comfortable, and she almost leaned against him as her body reacted to his warmth.

"There was a time when you trusted me—out of the entire English court, I was the only one you trusted," he reminded her.

It was the moonlight; it was the night; it was the cover of darkness. It was everything around her, she told herself, that made her answer, "A long time ago." Her breath released sharply when his hand covered hers, and he turned it around and intertwined their fingers. She sought to pull away, but he closed his hand around hers. "What are you doing?" she whispered. "I detest you."

But his fingers tightened and he requested, "Just for a little while. I traveled far."

She held her protest and decided to be merciful. Just for a little. She raised her face up and looked at the sky where the moon was full, thought it silly but decided that it could be a legend to tell little children, how every time the moon was round the world fell away.

He had thought her a faerie once, and she had returned the accusation. There may have been some truth to it. Their kisses—the ones that started all—always happened under the full moon. When she felt his lips on her shoulder, she closed her eyes. She would relish the moment, because inside the court when the returned to the harsh lights she would be back as the ambassador's wife and he would be whoever it was he had become in Spain.

"I want you to come home with me," he said again, the same request that he had made when he first arrived.

The plea was the end, and he had ruined the night that should have been peaceful, the moment that was their one true deception. "No," she repeated, her voice hardening in preparation for the assault on her senses.

His brows furrowed, and he turned her to face him. When she drew her hand away, his lips thinned. "You are my wife, madame," he threw back.

"I am not!" she denied. "That wedding was as much a lie as your confession of love."

Angrily, he protested, "I do love you!"

"You love my lands."

His eyes narrowed. "Then what am I doing here, Blair, where I am as good as dead should anyone breathe my name?"

"I don't know!" she returned, but she kept her voice low for the truth in his words. "You should not be here. Is it that the queen would not recognize your hasty marriage, and you cannot take the lands?" she asked. "Is it that she has taken them from you for what she has perceived as my treason? Why, Chuck?" she demanded.

He growled, and next she knew he took her by her arms and pulled her up against him. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and her arms rose to cling to his neck. Finally, she tore her mouth from his.

"I have an assignment," she said, her voice raspy. She pushed her hair back. "Go home, Chuck. Till the land and graze the cattle. Be rich. I swear I shall not take the lands from you."

When she returned to the hall, she found Carter waiting for her. She had not known of the tears until Serena took her aside and handed her a handkerchief. Blair hastily dabbed to dry her face.

"Soon," Serena promised her, speaking as though she thought they were friends, "it will be over." She smiled, but the smile that Serena gave her was sad. "Soon you will be free. Once this mission is done, you can do as you wish and you shall be free of Walsingham."

Blair nodded, and allowed at least a measure of comfort. When the mission was over, and her name was cleared, then Walsingham would no longer have any hold on her.

"Then you will live in Paris like a princess," Carter assured her.

Serena looked up, then pursed her lips. Blair glanced towards the direction that the blonde looked, and saw Chuck Bass emerge from the same door she had used. Paris with her mother was a new tomorrow.

The moon waxed; the moon waned.

Through the nights she worked to reach the duke of Medina-Sedonia, but the older Spanish gentleman, a steadfast Catholic and family man, was near impossible to reach. Walsingham had figured from her naïve and impulsive way of wrapping Essex and the Chancellor around her little finger, she would carry the same influence in Spain. The spymaster had made the miscalculation, and did not figure that Blair's wiles were selective and required interaction.

And Chuck Bass was there—watching from afar—for each and every one of the failed attempts.

"There is a way," Serena confided in her, two months into the mission, when it had turned bleak, when it seemed there was no end. Serena had spoken to her from inside her chambers, and ensured that Carter Baizen was not around to hear the plan. The very action spoke loudly of the danger it included. Serena knew that Carter would not allow plans that endangered her. While information on the Armada was the end goal of Walsingham's assignment, it was Blair herself who was the end goal of Carter's. "I know that you are tired. And this needs to be over before the Armada sails."

"Tell me," Blair responded.

"It will put you in harm's way," Serena cautioned.

"You shall not be along?"

"Not inside," the blonde informed her. "I have been made, and this will involve the same people, the same places, the same disguises that I have done before." Blair licked her lips. Serena continued, "But you are your own woman, Blair. This was made for you."

She would enter without the protection of Carter Baizen, but that she had already prepared for before she sailed to Spain. The man had merely been an unexpected addition. But she had asked Walsingham for protection and he had given her Serena. Now Serena van der Woodsen would not participate.

"Lady Blair, there is a place here in Madrid called Victrola, where Philip's secretaries frequent, dine, and seek women."

Blair shook her head. "That cannot be true," she said. "We have been in Philip's court for months, Serena, and the secretaries are strict Catholic men who honor their wives."

"But they are," Serena said with a tinge of sarcasm apparent in her voice. She shook her head. "Take my word for what it is. Don Juan de Idiaquez and Don Cristobal de Moura will be in Victrola. And you—" Serena smiled. "—you have just the look they want."

"You want the ambassador's wife to wander in to this Victrola?"

Serena shook her head. "You will be a courtesan."

Blair gasped. Having been Bartholomew Bass' ward, she had been educated enough to know the world beyond the safety of Northumbria. She had known the power of women and recognized the means to every end. But not once had she considered playing the role. "And you say this is your frequent disguise—a prostitute?"

"It never fails," Serena assured her. "Men of the court too often dismiss that there can be a mind in a courtesan's body. And when they have imbibed enough wine, Blair, they shall spill the kingdom's secrets."

"One night in Victrola—" she said.

"One night in Victrola and we will have more information than we have found the past months in court," Serena told her. "And soon it will be over."

Blair returned to her chambers and removed her cloak. She allowed it to fall to the floor and she made her way to the mirror. She picked up her brush and ran it through her hair. A hundred times, Dorota did it. She brushed and counted to seven, then placed the brush down. She eyed the discarded cloak and sighed. She climbed onto the bed and closed her eyes.

It was perhaps an hour later, maybe more. The sky was dimming but it was not yet night and the court had not gathered. She heard the knock on the door and determined it was either Serena van der Woodsen to ask her thoughts on the proposal or Carter Baizen to tell her to prepare.

She pulled the door open and found Chuck standing with a young woman she had not seen before. It was not the blonde companion that he had since informed her was his own ward Jenny, who looked at him in the way a ward must not look at her guardian. The woman standing with Chuck then was a flame-haired girl, in simple, dark clothes and a cross hanging from her neck.

She looked up at Chuck, and like always the mere sight of him took her breath away. "Can I help you?" she said, now completely aware of the state of her undress.

"I have brought for you Santa Cruz's daughter," he told her.

Blair's eyes widened. She stepped aside at once and allowed Chuck to enter with his companion. She felt his eyes on her and when she glanced at him saw the appreciation in his gaze. She shook her head, then hastily drew a robe over herself.

With his help in translation—although Blair had learned much of the language in the months she had stayed—Blair spoke to the daughter of the Armada's belated Admiral. She learned what the girl knew of the plans to recover, and what pains her father had gone through before his death. By the end of the conversation, when Chuck ushered the girl out of Blair's chambers, she had known three important pieces of information.

The Spanish treasury had spent a fortune building the Armada and was now depleted.

Santa Cruz was the greatest Admiral Spain had ever seen, and his replacement was woefully inadequate.

Philip wanted to invade England, and no amount of common sense would stop him.

Chuck closed the door and faced her. With only the two of them in her chambers her awareness of him heightened. "Consider it a gift," he told her.

"How did you convince her to speak?" she asked.

"As she said, the treasury is depleted. The king's coffers are empty, and so there is no wealth granted to those that Santa Cruz left behind."

Chuck Bass could get anything. Every man—or woman—had a price. But she had lost her father once, remembered the numbing pain that it had caused. The girl had spoken to her in exchange for gold, and it sat ill with her. She had forced the woman to dredge up the hurt of losing her father. "Is there nothing in your heart, Chuck, that pains you for forcing the girl to remember her loss?"

"Nothing," he told her honestly. "Do you know why?" She shook her head. He told her, "Because you needed to know." She looked up at him in confusion. "Because you swore you needed information, and I have been watching you. You are exhausted, Blair. This kind of life—this life that Serena and Carter have—this is not the life for you." He walked over to her, then tucked a wisp of her hair behind her ear. "You must know, Blair, that I would trample over angels to give you what you need."

She closed her eyes, held her breath. "At times, my lord, you make me forget that you are a two-faced bastard."

He kissed the tears from her face. "At times, Blair, you make me forget it as well."

With a sob, she held his face with both her hands. He kissed her, and the weight of him made her stumble backwards until she hit the wall. She pressed back and met his lips.

"I missed you in my arms," he gasped. She held onto him, arched her back when his burning lips trailed across her jawline and blazed a path down her neck. She breathed out of her parted lips and felt the hungry, exploring kisses on her collarbone. He pushed down on the sleeve of her gown and pushed the décolletage, baring one aching breast to the cool air.

She hiked up a leg over his hip and when he pushed his body against hers she rose to the tips of her toes.

"I swear to you—you love me still," he told her. With a silent, openmouthed scream, she felt his hot tongue lave her nipple. When he moved to the other breast and bit over the clothing, he kneaded and massaged the moistened breast she had thought he abandoned.

Her hands fluttered down to his shoulders. She shook her head. "And I swear I do not," she said faintly, unconvincingly. Blair watched as he lowered himself to kiss the covered abdomen, then threw back her head and buried her hands in his hair. What a sight she must be, she thought, with one breast bare and wet while the other seemed angry and full under her clothes. And then he buried his nose over her gown, pressing down there where her legs met. She bit her lip at the painful sweet pleasure. "I do not love you," she breathed the litany, losing sense in its repetition. But it was the only thing she held to anymore, "You lied to me and used me."

He rose, and she mourned the loss. He tipped her chin up so she would face him. "I hurt you. It's true," he admitted. "I did not tell you about the lands, Blair, because I had lost sight of the lands from the first time I held you in my arms."

"Liar," she breathed.

"I hurt you," he repeated. "And that is the only reason why you claim you do not love me." Blair caught her breath when he placed his palm low in her belly, over her womb, and she felt the warmth radiating from his hand into her body. He placed a kiss on her temple. "Look at you. You're sweating just with a mere touch."

She hastily pulled her flimsy gown to right, and covered the breast that he had bared. "Just because my body reacts to you touch does not mean I love you. My body does not know that you have used me."

The quiet knock on the door almost went unnoticed as he teased the corner of her mouth. His hand worked to raise her skirt over her hips. When his fingers brushed her inner thighs, Blair felt her body arch up. He was close, so close, and it hardly felt like the violent mating she had feared. She drew him close to her and felt the large, heavy protrusion pressing against her belly. Blair gasped, then looked down.

The knock grew louder. She flushed, then made her way to the door. She opened it a little and peered outside.

"Jenny," she said in recognition.

The blonde girl with her wide eyes looked her up and down. With a smile, Jenny inquired, "Will you send my lord back into his chambers, my lady?"

"You have come for him," Blair said.

"It is not safe for him to be there," the child reasoned, "and he has only myself to look after his welfare."

Blair's eyes narrowed. Before she could speak, Chuck placed a hand on her shoulder. "She's right," he said, then dropped a kiss on Blair's temple. He tipped her chin up, and for the girl's benefit she parted her lips when he kissed her mouth. "We need to go home, Blair. And then, you'll see—there will be no more interrupted nights."

She watched as he walked beside his ward. Jenny looked back towards her and Blair met the unsmiling eyes.

tbc


	17. Part 16

**AN: **My apologies for the delay. I had to brush up on my Spanish history.

**Part 16**

Where it was pomp and grandeur in Elizabeth's court, the Hapsburg court of Spain was somber and austere. The vivid displays of color and jewels were muted in Philip's court. Even the beautiful Princess Isabella, on her father's arm, marveled in a black and white gown with a netted silver bodice. She was a stark contrast to the grandiose entrance that Queen Elizabeth took for every banquet. Instead, the monarchs of the largest empire nodded in greeting at their subjects.

Chuck watched from afar, hidden in a shallow identity that could be uncovered within seconds, keeping away from ambassadors in the Spanish court who also had once appeared before the English throne. He had been in Elizabeth's council for two short years, and so representatives in the Spanish court serving Hapsburg could may well not have seen him before. But there were few, especially the envoys that had only just been banished by Elizabeth, who had seen him before and could so easily name him.

He had taken pains with his disguise for the masquerade ball, and his red devil's mask glittered with tiny jewels, distracting enough that he could venture closer to the throne with little fear of discovery. In the masquerade ball he searched the dozens of bodies on the floor for Blair. When he found her missing from the crowd he wandered towards the heavy curtains in his search. As he neared he felt the hand close over his wrist. He smirked and turned to her, and she was heavily made up, wearing a red wig that piled atop her head.

"You dressed as Gloriana in a Spanish ball?" he asked, half in disbelief and half in pride.

She merely smiled. He caught a peek from underneath the mask that hid most of her face. Then, she released his wrist and curved her lips. She flitted away from him, and he realized she was dressed instead as a faerie princess. She glanced back at him, coy, playful, then raced towards the corridors. He released a soft laugh, then made to chase after her.

She knew her way, and Chuck followed at her heels as she made her way towards the living quarters. As they turned the stairway he caught her by her waist and pressed her back towards him, and she grabbed a fistful of his hair as his head dipped and he kissed the crook of her neck. She giggled, then pulled away and raced the remaining steps.

"Blair," he called, "let me kiss you."

She placed her hands on her hips, then cocked her head to the side. When she reached the door to his chambers she pushed it open and hurriedly undid the laces of her gown.

Chuck's eyes followed the flimsy gown as it slid to the floor. When he looked back up at her, he frowned then shook his head. "Blair."

"Yes, my lord. Have me." She walked over to him, with her mask still in place, and pulled on his neck for her kiss. "I am your wife."

The words were powerfully heady to him, and he had long wished to hear them. His manhood rose and throbbed at the carefully selected words. Yet Chuck instead wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled her hands away from him. When her lips neared his, he said, "No."

The young woman—certainly not his Blair—pulled sharply away. Chuck grasped her wig and pulled, and golden locks fell around her shoulders. Slowly, he removed the mask, and saw the white paint on her face melt under her tears.

"This is the last time, Jenny," he said to the girl.

Jenny wiped at her tears with the back of her hand, then drew close to Chuck and placed her hands on his chest. "Forgive me."

"You cannot fool me and think I will forgive you."

"By all your accounts, my lord, that woman has fooled you more than I. And here you are with your life on the line, waiting for her," Jenny said. She demanded, "Tell me then, my lord, where lies the difference?"

"You do not wish to know," Chuck told her.

"I have been with you all along, and she has spurned you over and over!"

"Jenny, stop," he gritted.

"I am better!" she cried. "A far better choice than she." And then, she whispered, "It is because of her blood and mine. Always, it is blood. It is why you prefer her to me—because her blood in nobler than mine. Far be it that I have lived these past months only to serve you."

He exhaled sharply in his disbelief. "Not blood, Jenny," he said, in his effort to educate the girl who had become his charge.

"It is," she insisted. "It is why Lady Rose would rather send me into the lion's den for her precious daughter."

Chuck's eyes narrowed. "Lady Rose," he repeated. "Blair's mother is alive."

"Aye!" Jenny exclaimed. "Another truth that she failed to reveal to you. Do you not accept, my lord, that Lady Blair would never trust you?"

"How do I know you are telling me the truth?"

The girl raised her chin. "I have been sent by Lady Rose to retrieve her daughter, for fear that Carter Baizen had perished on his mission."

"You work with Carter?"

Jenny shook her head. "Carter lives to satisfy Lady Rose, and his only reason now is to return Lady Blair to France. He does not know of me. In truth, he would be shattered to know that Lady Rose had sent another one to take his place."

"And you," Chuck asked softly. "Your mission is the same."

"My mission is to myself. It is why I agreed to work with Lady Rose. It is why I am here with you. In this life, my lord, for people such as I—a woman must take matters into her own hands."

The scuffle outside his door was enough to wake the dead. Chuck gestured to the discarded dress at Jenny's feet. "Cover yourself. And then in the morning I shall find you passage to Paris. I will not have you around, Jenny."

"I have served you well," she reminded him.

"I cannot have you around my wife," he told her. "Not when this is how you feel."

Jenny gathered her gown, then proudly, with a small, bitter smile on her face, said, "Then it is true," she said. "She will always have everything—and she does not need to work for them. While I have worked these past months for your affection, she takes it, with no work. She does not deserve it."

The scuffle grew louder, and he heard the angry voices of a man and a woman. "You know nothing of love, Jenny."

"Then teach it to me," she urged.

"I will not be the one," he answered. Chuck Bass was not fit to teach it. "I am but learning it."

A terrified shriek pierced through the thin walls. Chuck recognized the fear on the voice, and threw open his door. He found Serena held by her neck against the wall, and an enraged Carter Baizen growling at her. Despite his disdain for Serena's role in Walsingham's plot, the sight of a woman at the mercy of the man spurred him forward. Chuck closed his hand around Carter's arm.

"Let go, Mr Baizen," he said.

Carter's grip did not budge, and Chuck saw Serena's face take on a sickening shade of blue. "When you know you will kill her yourself," Carter gritted out.

It was then that nausea built in his head and his gut. Chuck glanced at Serena, then read it in Carter's face. His only reason for living, Jenny said, his only assignment for Lady Rose, was retrieving Blair and returning her to her mother. Chuck loosened Carter's grip on Serena, and when the spy released his hold Serena sank onto the floor gasping for breath.

She looked up with tearful eyes. "Thank you," she said to him.

Chuck knelt so they would be close. And then, he asked, "What have you done, Serena?" Serena rested her palms on the floor as she took wheezing breaths. Instead of waiting, Chuck grasped Serena's upper arm, then squeezed tightly, "Where is my wife?"

"She is fulfilling her commitment to Walsingham," Serena gasped. "I have done nothing but help her. The sooner this is over, the sooner you can take her. Either of you!"

"You have endangered her," Carter stated. "You have slipped her away without my knowledge because you know—"

This time, it was Serena who furiously spat, "Enough of your drivel, Carter. Do you truly think a woman cannot perform this work? I have outdone you. And she is capable of this even without you."

"She is not a spy, Serena," Chuck replied.

"She will get her information. She knows how to speak with men." To Chuck, she said, "Surely you know, my lord. You, Lord Essex. She can get a man to spill his soul to her."

"Once she has the information, how do you suppose she will get away?" Chuck's head filled with images he did not dare recognize. "She is not like you. Where is she, Serena?"

With a glare towards Carter, she turned to Chuck. Then she crawled close and said into his ear, "Victrola."

~o~o~o~o~

Her heart had not hammered and thundered the way it did when she climbed up onto the raised platform at the center of Victrola. She was rouged, made up, wearing the decadent trappings of French-Austrian ladies that the Spanish court so fervently disliked. In the Spanish court, as she had seen, it was somber and quiet, a simple Catholic life. Far be it that the singular symbols and icons contained jewels and gold that put the distant, exotic worlds across the sea to a shuddering shame. Yet for whatever their reason, despite their simple preferences in court, Blair was surprised to find many of the nobles from the court, strict and staunch Catholic men that they were, many of Philip's nobles were present that night in Victrola drinking and delighting at the maddening display of flash and flesh.

Victrola was a place for sin, and they were in a circle of hell.

Blair dropped a satin sleeve onto the floor, then spied one of the girls she had met before she was ushered for her dance. The girl laughed, her voice trilling into the air, as she had relations with one of the dispatched diplomats. Her skirts were hiked up around her waist and the diplomat pummeled with his hips. Her eyes widened, because the girl had seemed not to be in pain one moment and the next she was crying out like she was being stuck like a pig for roast.

She stood frozen on the platform when the music stopped. Blair prepared to be admonished. Instead she found Recalde, Philip's secretary, reaching up with his hand. She sighed, grateful she would not need to take off her clothes any longer, yet fearful of what the secretary would ask of her.

Serena was correct. The man was enamored of the features they had emphasized with the pencils and the powders, and he delighted in the plumpness of the bosom that Serena had revealed through primping and pushing. Blair found herself relegated to the sideline with a cup of Spanish wine as Recalde spoke with his companions. With her improving Spanish she confirmed what Santa Cruz's daughter has told them.

"Now Philip needs someone with a high social rank."

"The duke of Medina-Sedonia is high enough in the ladder. He is as close to the throne as Parma."

"But the man shall fail. He knows nothing. He told the king he knows nothing."

"Surely Santa Cruz trained his own men," she said in her simple Spanish, surprising the group at the table.

Recalde grinned, then nodded in appreciation. "Santa Cruz's Armada officers are stubborn like Santa Cruz. The king needs a follower." He tapped on her glass still full.

She glanced at the wine. "A follower who lacks military experience, who knows nothing about the enemy or about the kingdom's battle strategy?" Blair asked.

"The Armada is made of sailing ships. It will be quick on the sea."

"As quick as Drake."

Recalde turned to her, then said with a smile, "You, querida, should have the chance to face King Philip."

The flattery assured her she was doing well, and she took a sip of the wine. It was much tastier and far sweeter than the stale wine she often drank in London. When she returned she would tell the Lord High Chancellor of the brew and perhaps convince him to import the same. The conversation continued around her and her glass was refilled with the delicious wine.

She reached for the second glass, but found her vision altered. She caught thin air and looked up in surprise at the swimming figure of Recalde in front of her.

The guests one by one left the private chambers of Philip's secretary. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and opened them, determined that her vision would be right. She moved to rise, only to find her limbs had gone weak and she was unable to move. One glass had never been so potent, and she wondered if the drink had been tainted. Recalde assisted her in lying to ease her dizziness, but she found instead that he had laid her across the table.

In her fear, in her desire, in every chance she had to think of this, never had she thought of any face above her than Chuck Bass'. Even when she hated him, even when she did not, it was always Chuck Bass who took her. The man above her placed a gentle kiss on her forehead as if this would be an act of love. Blair prayed for sleep so she would be gone from it all.

The man tugged at the bodice of her gown, and her arms were heavy as she tried to push him off. But the man's weight grew heavier and she struggled underneath him. And then his hands were slack and they fell away. The dead weight above her was suffocating. She opened her eyes and gasped for breath, and saw Chuck standing above them.

She felt the warm liquid staining her arms, then found the dripping knife in Chuck's hand. He was a vague, fuzzy image, but his face was clear. He dropped the knife, then lifted the body of the king's secretary off of hers. There was blood on her arms, blood on her gown. When her head was clearer she would be terrified, but now she was only grateful. He bent to lift her, and she wrapped her arms tightly around him and finally, allowed herself to drift off.

When Blair woke, she found herself choking on water that he forced on her. The chambers stank and when she searched for the foul source she found it was a basin by her head, half-filled with a murky liquid. Within seconds she found out what it was when her stomach rebelled and purged the wine. He held onto her hair as she retched. Chuck reached to fill another glass with water and held it to her mouth.

She drank the water until her stomach was so full and she vomited again. Finally, when it seemed the liquid she threw up came clear, Blair settled back into the bed and curled on top of the sheets. Chuck moved the blankets and she waved away the action.

"It is hot," she told him.

So he kissed her arm and told her, "No blankets then."

He lay down beside her, the very first time since the early days in London when he was the tutor and she was his student. This was the first time they would lie together since the wedding that she refused to recognize.

"You saved me," she sighed. She stank, from the air in Victrola and the subsequent purging that was not a pretty sight to behold. But here he was beside her, and he had wrapped her in an embrace. It was hot, she had told him, but she did not complain even if his arms made it all the hotter.

"Chuck," she whispered. She tangled her fingers with his as they rested by her breast.

"Blair."

"I have enough," she confided in him. "I have enough for Walsingham. I think we can go home now."

Blair closed her eyes when his only answer was to bury his face into the nape of her neck, sealing kisses there under the sheltering wisps of her hair.

It was easy to sleep again after that. Her body tried to regain the strength she had lost and to heal after the havoc of the tainted wine.

In the dark dawn, the heavy knocking on his door woke her. In the fuzzy state of her healing sleep, Blair pulled herself up to sit. Chuck sat up, then told her to lie down and sleep. He padded across the floor and pulled the door open.

"Lord Warwick."

The name struck like lightning into the peace of her sleep. Blair looked wide-eyed as Philip's soldiers converged around Chuck. She raced barefoot to the doorway as the men pulled Chuck towards them.

"Su nombre no es Warwick!" Blair cried.

From behind one of the soldiers, Jenny stepped forward. Blair felt all the breath leave her body in one release. She gripped the door frame. Her body was trembling from the lack of sustenance and the violent spasms it had taken to rid herself of the toxins.

"That is Charles Bass, earl of Warwick," Jenny stated calmly. "Would you like for me to identify you, lady?"

She was unresisting, limp, when another solder grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. She fell to her hands and knees. She bowed low and her hair hid most of her face from view. She swallowed, then looked up.

Chuck gritted his teeth, then pulled forward with his arms. He kept his gaze on her, and Blair read the quiet instruction. "That is a whore I brought home from the city. Leave it be." He looked towards Jenny, and Blair saw the bitter, vengeful glare that the young woman returned. "Leave it be, Jenny."

The soldiers drove Chuck forward, leaving her with Chuck's ward. Blair's vision of Jenny swam, and the figure of the girl danced irreverently in her altered state. "How could you do this, Jenny?" she asked. "He helped you. Do you truly hate him so?"

"I love him," the girl returned.

"Then I do not understand how you can betray him."

The girl drew closer. Blair felt the bile rise to her throat. She crouched on the floor and braced herself by her arms, then choked out thin liquid traces of the night's wine. She sniffed when her nose ran. She pulled herself up but ended up in the same pose. The girl towered over her. Jenny's shoes moved from the side of the puddle that Blair had created. In answer, the girl replied, "Because I am you. I should be. I deserve to be."

She could not tell how long it took. Minutes, hours. And then Blair found herself hauled up to her feet as Carter pulled her to her chambers.

tbc


	18. Part 17

**AN:** Hey guys. Here we go. Don't forget to review. Let me know what you think. You are invited to join me in the last few remaining parts.

**Part 17**

The duke of Parma and the Armada should meet off the coast of Dover. Even then the Armada sailed. The information she overheard was urgent, and needed to be written to Walsingham at once. But she was bowed low in her prayer, and for a brief moment she was selfish. She would not rise, not when she was begging God for favor.

She clutched at the small worn book that she had kept close, hidden away in the secret compartment of the small valise she had carried by hand in the ship to Spain. Now the leather bound booklet, given by her father in solemn trust, was grasped tightly and ever so firmly. She knelt in the large Catholic cathedral, a mere speck in the grandiosity that surrounded her.

"Merciful Father," she whispered, with her head bowed low. Tears threatened to spill, thinking of what Philip's men could possibly do to such a close advisor of Queen Elizabeth. He was Warwick, and he had all the power in the palm of his hand. His name alone—Chuck Bass—resonated with such incredible power in England. But here in Spain it was a death sentence to utter it alone. "Look with pity upon your servant for whom I offer this prayer. Remember him, O Lord, in mercy. Nourish his soul with patience. Comfort him with your goodness," she pleaded, knowing by hearsay alone what torture they could inflict upon him."

Serena had kissed her hands that morning, when she woke and remembered what had passed. She remembered not how she had fallen asleep, had choked on the guilt at the strength and peace her rest had provided. Chuck Bass had been sent to the Hapsburg dungeons, and it struck terror into the hearts of Englishmen who had arrived in Spain.

"I swear I did not think they would harm you, Blair," Serena said to her.

"What did you think they would do?" she asked in return.

"I thought you would play them, as you did so well in London."

"These men are not Chuck Bass," Blair responded. But she had agreed, and therefore Serena was not at fault. It would be horrendous to place the blame on the other woman, when she was her own person and had believed she could complete her assignment.

"You can go home," Serena told her. "With all that you had learned, the queen will celebrate your success. Walsingham shall inform her of your deed and you shall have your place beside the queen. No one will doubt your loyalty to the crown."

Even the most fervent desire she had nursed for years could not take her disturbed mind from thoughts of Chuck. While Jack Bass had wandered in the Tower, lived his life like she had in Beauchamp, as expected of a nobleman imprisoned in England, Chuck would certainly not have the same luxury in Philip's dungeons.

Dorota had told her stories of Mary and Philip razing the countrysides, piling bodies in towns and cities, burning bodies into ashes as thick, pungent smoke carried Protestant souls adrift in the air. Philip's iron fist could create such horror from across the seas. Who knew what terror he could ravage upon a singular man—from the very best and oldest families in England—upon Philip's soil?

"Merciful Father, give him peace," she pleaded. "Through Jesus Christ our Lord."

She lifted her knuckles to her brow, and her face trembled with the passion which filled her. This was real. This was more real than the hanging threat that had Walsingham throw her into the Tower. In London she had been at home, and she had known despite the loneliness of the days before Chuck arrived, that out there Bartholomew and Chuck worked for her freedom.

She was alone now. She was Chuck's death. She was Chuck's life. In her lay his fate.

"Amen."

Blair took in a deep breath, then opened her eyes and met Princess Isabella's gentle smile. At the sight, her lips curved. Her wait was done. Carter was right. This was where to find Isabella, and if he was correct in everything he had told her in the journey to the Spanish court, Blair knew she was the only hope to keep Chuck Bass alive.

"Amen," she whispered after Isabella.

Very carefully, within Isabella's sight, Blair laid down her Book. The princess' eyes flickered to the Book, then back at Blair's face. Isabella frowned, but Blair raised her chin and did not attempt to hide it. With her rosary hanging from her wrist, Isabella reached to cover Blair's hand. "You must know, my lady, that the Inquisition shall capture you at the sight of your Book."

"Perhaps I care no longer if they should throw me into your prison," Blair answered quietly.

The princess glanced behind her, to the two guards who walked with her, then waved them away. She gestured to the place beside Blair, and as if Blair did not intrude in the private hour of her worship, Isabella asked, "May I?" Blair nodded, and the princess slid into the seat beside her on the pew. The princess was careful not to touch Blair's Book. Instead, the princess—as devout a Catholic as she was—asked, "What is the guilt that weighs you? Why would you wish for a certain death?"

In Carter's own words, her mother was related to Queen Catarina. Isabella was the only surviving child of Catarina's daughter Elizabeth. She was her own woman, but Blair was not above using any means within her reach to attain her goal.

The end. The end mattered.

Carter had vehemently opposed this plot, had insisted on staging his own rescue of Lord Bass for her sake. But his heart would always be on Blair's safety and she could not trust Chuck's life to a man for whom it was secondary. For her scheme, it would require that she reveal her identity.

"Within your dungeons, princess, is Lord Chuck Bass."

The princess appeared startled, and Blair knew she had not figured that there was anyone else connected to Lord Bass still within the court.

"He is sure to die," Isabella responded. She shook her head. "Will you die with him?" she asked in disbelief.

"No," Blair answered. "I would live with him." Slowly, she slid from the pew and knelt before the princess. She clutched at the princess' hand. She knew Isabella. She had not met her, but she had known Eleanor, and had known Queen Catarina. Once upon a time in the French court, Blair had met Isabella's mother and knew they were all the same. With their blood from Italy, pulsing through Spain and England and France—they would all be the same. Once Isabella knew her, she would know the depth of the plea and would be shamed that Blair knelt before her. "Free him."

Isabella pulled her hand out of hers. "Free the Englishman?" Isabella repeated. "The earl of Warwick?"

"Free my husband," Blair said softly, the admission long overdue, the first in many months. Even if she had not claimed it true for so long, the words fell easily from her lips.

Isabella's eyes narrowed. "You are a foolish woman," she pronounced. "You should have escaped when he was caught. You admit to me, the princess of Spain, that you are Warwick's wife?"

"I am asking you as your cousin, Isabella," Blair said, using the familiar name, slipping into the part of the plot that she had banked on by mere faith. If Isabella was not who Blair thought she would be, then the next would be her march to the dungeons. "My name is Blair Waldorf," she told the princess. "I am Eleanor's daughter."

At once, she recognized the shift in the princess' stance. Isabella pulled her up. "If it is true what you say, and you and I are cousins, then you cannot kneel before me."

Blair settled on the seat by Isabella. The princess looked around in the large church to ensure that they were alone. She leaned close. "The earl of Warwick is your husband. Lady Eleanor and Queen Catarina had been heartbroken for a long time about losing you."

"My mother did not lose me," Blair answered. "She abandoned me."

"And broke her heart for it," Isabella assured her. The princess made the sign of the cross, then kissed the silver cross on her rosary. "For years they have sought to find you, and I chance upon you in the house of the Lord."

Blair did not need to say what it was she who had set up the perfect chance encounter, that she had made herself available in Isabella's path.

"But you are a Bass now, cousin," Isabella said.

"Please, Isabella."

"Swear to me you will leave your husband."

It was not as if Blair had not prepared for it. Once she decided this was the way to free Chuck from the horrors of Philip's dungeon, she had known that Isabella, as goodhearted as she was, would ask for a trade.

"It will be a shame that one of ours would be the countess of Warwick. It would be a blight on our good blood." Isabella pursed her lips. "I cannot imagine a child of our blood, Blair, that bears the blood of Chuck Bass."

A certain thrill raced through her body, and Blair bit her lip at the vision of children racing their horses through Northumbria's moors.

"Quickly, cousin," Isabella said. "Every moment in the dungeon, your husband suffers."

Blair closed her eyes. "I swear."

"Be certain, Blair," Isabella advised. "I will have my men on all the ships bound for England. Cousin or not, I will not hesitate to seek for your head if you should betray me."

So she repeated, "I swear."

Isabella nodded. Finally, as if only then did it occur to the princess that she was a long-lost member of her family, Isabella drew Blair in an embrace. "I shall make the arrangements for your travel to France, Blair."

"My husband?" she breathed. And Blair corrected herself, lest she anger the princess, "The earl?"

"Tonight there will be an assault in the dungeons, and my men shall lead him out."

Blair nodded, satisfied with the arrangement. Surely Serena van der Woodsen could manage to get him safely aboard a ship to England. He could take the place that Blair would have taken in the arrangement with Walsingham.

"Isabella," she said. "Cousin, will you allow me to say goodbye?"

~o~o~o~o~

He was battered and beaten, his eye half shut. When he was pushed forward and into the small garden shed at the back of the church—the only refuge safe to harbor him—Blair knelt over his form. She had not known she cried, but when he looked at her with his swollen eyes and wiped her tears with him thumbs, she saw his skin come away wet.

"Look what they have done to my husband," she said gently.

The door closed and they were left alone in the cold, dimly lit room. At the words, he smirked, then winced when it hurt the cut on his lip. "Your husband," he repeated to her.

Blair smiled, then pushed the hair off of his forehead and saw the matted blood there. She reached for the bowl of water and the piece of rag she had prepared. Gingerly, she dabbed at the blood until she revealed the wound. She pressed a kiss on its edges and willed it to heal. "See what I have done? You are free."

"This world is not yours, Blair. You and I—we shall return to England now. I will make you a queen in Warwick. You shall answer to no one," he promised.

Blair washed the blood from the cloth, watched the water grow pink. She wiped at his face with the clean cloth. "Not even to you?"

"You have never answered to me," he reminded her.

She smiled at the prospect, then pushed away at the torn clothes that he had worn. Her heart sank at the bruises on his skin. She traced the angry edges with her fingertips. In the corner Isabella had provided a fresh change of clothes, some salve for his wounds. Instead of reaching for them, Blair instead drew close and kissed the hot flesh.

"Blair—" he breathed.

From the bruise on his shoulder, to the shallow cut above his heart. His fingers buried in her hair when she moved to nuzzle at the row of bruises that littered his ribcage. She nipped kisses towards the vertical line of hair that tapered to his navel. She could not help but weep, and she sniffled. Blair wrapped her arms tightly around his torso and cursed herself. She would never be a spy. If she could not hold her emotions, if her eyes revealed her lies—

"I have changed my mind, Chuck. I will go with Carter, to Paris where my mother is."

With a thumb and a forefinger he lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. She refused to meet his gaze. "We can go to Paris together, when the war is done, when we have settled into our lives."

She shook her head, started to pull away, but he caught her to him firmly. "You shall sail for home, Chuck, and tend to our lands. You shall make them flourish, and fill a patch with flowers."

"The cattle will not feed on flowers," he said to her hoarsely.

"But you will tend to flowers still. Plant dama de noche, so when you smell them in the night you will remember me."

Only in the night. Always in the night.

"This is how you sought my freedom," he concluded, remembering the written confession that Bartholomew had brandished on the day the queen had asked for his execution.

When he looked at her, his eyes asked a thousand questions, and she nodded in answer.

He pushed away the bowl of water. With his hands on her arms he pulled her towards him. She allowed him to lift her and she settled over him. Blair dragged her skirts up and released them so they covered their legs as she straddled him. Her lips covered his. "I have missed you. I was scared I would lose you."

He met her kiss with a fervor of his own. Blair felt the hard grip he had of her skull as he ravaged her mouth with his wounded lips. His hands fumbled as he pushed her bodice down, so she helped him by unlacing it and allowing the top of her dress to fall freely around her waist.

He worshipped her with her kisses around her breasts. She threw back her head when he laved at her nipples, flicked one with his tongue until it thrust and pebbled under his ministrations. With his hand he massaged the other breast. The sensation was thrilling, and she fidgeted over his lap when she felt his member rise and stiffen, push forward from inside his trousers and tease her mound. His hips rose, and the sensation made her breathe in sharply.

"Chuck—"

Her body had a will of its own, and her hips moved over him and ground down, rubbed and pushed down. With his mouth on her breast, and his fingers on another, Blair moved rhythmically against him, searching for a place of calm. Her forehead pressed against his ear now. When his other hand moved underneath her skirts and tore at her hose, she bit at the side of his neck.

"It's night time," he whispered.

Blair forced her eyes to open and she peeked at the cracked window, saw the glow of the lamplights from the church. His finger slid into her channel, finding her slick, and she moved her hips frantically. He slipped another one inside, pumping inside her and she moved in the same rhythm.

She whimpered in her throat. Blair lifted her head, breathing from her mouth. He pushed up, inside and outside, with his hand. "Just as if I were teaching you a dance. Same rhythm, my love. Same pulse."

She breathed harshly, nodded. Her hair had fallen in disarray over her face. "And then I fly," she gasped.

He pushed, and in her head she counted. Just like the dance, in front of the court, only this time they were alone in the night. She felt the world converge and press down upon her, then shatter in a million pieces around them. His mouth closed over hers to swallow her scream.

She was a mass of trembling muscle above him. His kisses rained over her face, cooling her heated skin. Her heart raced in her chest, and she flushed when she realized that she had lost control over him. She lost the embarrassment when he kissed her again. She rose from his lap, and with weak knees she stood and allowed her gown to fall. She stood before him in the garden shed in her torn stockings. Chuck followed her movement. She ran her hand over his bruised skin. She pushed him gently against the brick wall and rested her full weight on him.

He lowered his head for a kiss. "They think to send you away from me," he murmured against the skin of her throat.

Blair closed her eyes, then felt him clutch at her thighs to hold her fully against him. She reached between them and slid her hand into his trousers. She cupped the length of him, hard, full, and she ran her hand up and down him, weighing, measuring, preparing herself.

She loved him.

And if he should mount her painfully, then she would accept it. She was his wife, and he was her husband. A royal blessing, witnesses or banns be damned. She had committed herself to him when they married. Even Isabella's bargain could not take it away. If this was what it took to seal this marriage, then she would suffer through the ordeal.

He hissed, then maneuvered their bodies so that she was the one resting back against the wall. Blair bit her lip and braced her palms against the wall behind her. He reached down to pull off her torn stockings. She whimpered at the touch of his warm hands on her cool skin.

He lifted her up and she caught her breath.

"Put your hands on my neck," he instructed her.

Blair nervously nodded, then wrapped her arms around his neck instead. She closed her eyes then raised her hips. Chuck guided himself up and into her. Sweat bloomed on her forehead as her body stretched and unfurled to accommodate every bit of him. He stopped halfway, and she gasped for breath.

"So tight," he said.

She swallowed, then nodded. She was stretched full. There was no pain yet, but she felt herself completely bared and exposed with him halfway in her.

"Easy," he whispered.

She sniffled, then rested her forehead against his chin. Chuck dropped a kiss on the top of her head, and angled his hips, drove forward and up. He burst through the barrier. She cried out at the invasion, at the burning and tearing sensation when he entered her.

He pressed his body onto hers, and rested one hand on her left breast. Blair blinked away the tears from the pain. His thumb rubbed over the sensitive nipple. She felt him move, and her wetness made it easier for him. She still felt the trickle of warmth from her body. His hand reached down between them and when he brought it up she saw the stain of her blood mixed with a white fluid.

He kissed her deeply, and for a moment his tongue plunged inside her mouth in the same rhythmic pattern that he drew in and out of her body.

"I do not need flowers," he told her. "I will remember you every moment."

She pushed his hair away from his face, then kissed his lips. She held tightly to him as he drove within her. She kept her nails from his back. He had been too hurt in the dungeon, and it was a miracle he even had the strength to do this. This mounting—this consummation—it was everything and nothing that she had thought about. She had bled, and there had been pain—

But this—

They moved together, and she arched against him. She was completely his, in every sense, with her body bare and open to him. Yet as she felt him enter him over and over, with his sweat rolling off his temple. He stiffened over her, and she clutched tightly to him as his hips pumped jerkily over and over. She felt the warm flood of his seed coat the insides of her body and spill onto the insides of her thighs.

He was completely hers too.

In wonder, she told him, "I love you, Chuck. Wherever you go, whatever you do, know I love you."

He kissed her, breathed her sweat. "Then sail home with me."

"If I do, we die." She shook her head. "I have only just learned this love, Chuck. I cannot die, and I cannot lose you."

"I will find you in France," he swore.

"That is insane. In Henri's court?"

"To hell itself."

They made love another time, in the darkness, hidden by the black blanket of the night. He swore to her, in fevered breaths into her ear, that someday they would be in love in the light, and they would love so completely that everyone would see.

tbc


	19. Part 18

**AN: **Thank you for reviewing that last part. Enjoy this one too.

**Part 18**

This was no game, this chase.

He raised himself up on one elbow and traced her lips, wondered what good he had done in the world to have such divine lips touch his. For Chuck Bass, the world had been a ground he owned. It had been a steady, ceaseless adventure to take more and have more, to watch the showers replenish the grasses that coated the hills, to see the cattle multiply as it crossed the streams of Warwick. For Chuck, the world had been the court and how it nourished his thirst for more. With every stratagem he concocted to further Elizabeth's coffers, his name built and grew until he was a legend at nineteen years.

Every day he grew in favor with the queen, the smaller was his father's name. The longer he was a trusted advisor, the more Bartholomew diminished. After years of loving a man whose sole mission in life was reaching a peak in the queen's service, and leaving his family behind as he worked to further Elizabeth and England in kingdoms far from Northumbria, Chuck Bass had come into his own.

Far be it for him to await affection from a duke who had been so ensconced in his love affair with his legendary title that he had been upon the Channel on the day that Chuck's mother perished in the moors.

Perished in the moors.

It was far too bland a phrase for the way that Evelyn had diminished. Over the years that Bartholomew served to please another woman, Chuck's mother had grown closer to the edge of sanity. Every day Bartholomew was away she slid into the contemptible shadows of a world that only she could see. And with his father gone, it was Chuck Bass at fourteen who had peered down the side of a drop, and recognized his mother's mangled body down by the misty rocks.

"Call your father, my boy," Evelyn had told her the night before. And when Chuck had revealed to his mother that Bartholomew was over the sea, Evelyn had confided in him, "Then I will fly to him. I love him so."

And in the dead of the night, Evelyn had flown.

Upon Bartholomew's return, Chuck Bass had informed his father that he would leave and seek his own fortune.

"When you love, son, every moment apart shall tear you to pieces," Bartholomew had told him. "You should not blame your mother," he reminded the young man. And Chuck wished to tell him he did not blame Evelyn—not even when the church had refused sacred ground for the duchess for the venal sin of taking her own life—and instead blamed Bartholomew himself. The duke had abandoned Evelyn and Chuck, and in return Chuck would abandon him, his heritage, the sprawling lands that took Evelyn's mind.

When he loved, when he found a wife, Chuck had sworn he would commit none of his father's mistakes. Love first, the kingdom second.

Blair slept in his arms, and every breath she drew that brought them closer to dawn and the sunrise, he fought the urge to hold on tight, to mold himself to her that he would vanish into the supple body within which merely hours before he had lost himself. His lids grew heavy as he leaned close and brushed his nose against her jaw, nuzzling upwards to the fine hair by her ear. She murmured in her sleep, a breath of his name. He pressed a fervent kiss onto the lobe of her ear. "You will not be without me," he said to her, "for a moment longer than absolute need."

"My husband," she sighed, and he felt her arms wrap around his body, her palms resting on his bare back. The lashes had stung when the Hapsburg whip pelted his back, but the touch of her skin was cool and soothing.

He did not wish to let her go. Outside the windows it was dark, and he relished the moon and the stars. The glow within the church was fearsome to him, for once. Soon a priest would blow out the lamplight and kill the torches, and Chuck feared the tentative grayness that was ominous of the morning. He looked down at her face, smiled when her lips curved in welcome. Chuck cupped her face with one hand and took her lips in hunger. "My wife," he answered. She moved her legs as he rolled on top of her, and he felt her thighs cradle his hips.

Remnants of the night before remained on her skin, on his, telling him it had been too close since the last, since he took her maidenhead. Her body had barely healed. With his other hand he reached down and massaged the insides of her thighs. She whimpered at the contact and pulled away from his kiss.

Chuck saw her gaze flicker to the window, knew the fear in her eyes as well as his own. She looked back at him.

"Come inside," she invited.

Whatever hesitation he had vanished at the plea. Yet it could have been hypocrisy, or just his utter devotion, but he took his member in his hand and guided it until the head teased her opening. She hissed, and her legs fell open more. In a move borne of instinct her legs wrapped around him. "I do not wish to hurt you."

She shook her head. "In the morning we die," she said, "when you leave for London and I for Paris. In the morning my heart will die." Her fingers buried in his hair, tugging firmly so that their lips could lock forever. "But that is in the morning, Chuck. Let me live tonight."

His heart laden, his body thrumming, he slid easily inside his wife and at the back of his eyelids he saw bursting light that he did not fear. His hips worked, thrusting inside the hot home that was deep in her belly. Blair's body clutched at him, squeezed him for the life in his loins. His mouth worked to kiss her, and when she needed to breathe he could not have enough. He kissed her chin, over her closed eyelids, her cheeks.

Her fingers clawed at his wounded back, and the sharp pain was lightning bolt.

"I'm sorry," she gasped when her fingers slipped in sweat and a little blood.

"I shall put a dagger in your hand and if you should plunge it into my back," he said to her, "I would love you still." The reassurance came with the pummeling, hammering way he slid into her newly initiated body. Even then he felt her clasp her hands together to keep from clawing him. He opened his eyes, and looked down at her face, from the tightly shut eyes to the way she breathed with her mouth open.

The flush around her neck and the tension on her shoulders told him what he needed to know, even as her body spasmed and clenched around him, making his vision grow dark.

"Love you," she cried.

His heart skipped a beat. No matter how many times he heard it, from her mouth, he would soar. "I love you," he answered.

He plunged inside her as her body rebelled. He felt her against his belly as her body twisted. "Chuck," she exclaimed. "My lord." He had experienced enough to recognize that the time before when he lost himself she had not reached her climax. And he would not willingly part with her until she knew what it was like to be lost while he was inside her. He would brand himself inside her, flood her, mark her until she would remember only his name. "Come, my lord. Inside me, Chuck. Just like before. I love it so."

She writhed in him, and knew she expected the conclusion that he had given her before. But he had spent himself and his uncontrollable hunger once, and swore this time she would reach her peak apart from his fingers.

He dripped in sweat as he labored over her, keeping himself in check. "Open your eyes," he told her. Blair did as she was asked, and he held her gaze as he drove inside her. With one hand he teased her nipple. "Come for me," he returned.

Her eyes widened. He lowered his head and ran a hot tongue over her lower lip, drew a slow line to trace her upper lip. Her pupils dilated.

He felt her arms tighten around him, felt her hands slide free of each other and grasp his shoulders.

"There is nothing to fear, my love," he assured her, afraid she would beat him this time, and he would come again before she did.

"Chuck—" she groaned, throwing back her head. He saw the confusion on her face, accepted the fear.

"I love you, Blair."

Her fingers buried into his skin, and he felt the bite of her nails. Her legs tightened around him, and her body pulled like a vise. He drove inside her, pushing himself to the brink.

"Chuck!"

And then she broke, melting around him with a scream. Chuck groaned, thankful for her release and he let loose his seed and poured himself inside her. He pumped forward a few more times, into her welcoming, eager body, holding onto her legs before she slid away. He collapsed on top of her, his head on her chest, not moving, still, letting all of him into her and listening to the rapid heartbeat against his ear.

He gasped as he tried to catch his breath. Her hands rubbed against his back, soothing. He turned his head and kissed the erect nipple that was within his sight. He heard the soft rumble of her laughter, felt the tremor as she accompanied it with tears.

Chuck raised himself up on his elbow, but moved only enough to look. She smiled at him.

"You are still inside of me," she said softly.

"If I had a choice, I would be inside you forever."

He felt it first against his skin before he saw it reflected in her eyes.

Sunlight.

Morning and the reckoning. Even as he rebelled against it, he pulled out of her body and sat, saw a glimpse of their mixed fluids on her thighs. Himself, her blood, her own release. He took the cleanest part of his discarded shirt and tore a strip of it. There was still bloodied water left from where she had put the cloth in the night. He dipped the strip to moisten it and very carefully wiped the skin between her legs.

She held her breath. She was raw, used, but her body was the most beautiful he had seen. He bent low, and felt her thumb draw circles on his nape as he dipped his head and kissed there. He heard the breath she released, felt the tiny flutter against his lips. He raised his face to look at her.

"When we are home," he promised her, wondering if these were empty words, "I shall wash you with rose water." Because water that had his blood, if intimate, was below her. She had been—always would be his faerie creature, his queen. When he righted her dress, and pulled it over her lovely breasts, then pulled the rumpled, sullied gown down over her legs, he vowed, "And you will wear gowns better than the queen's."

"Promises," she breathed.

He watched when she slid away, when she gripped the wall as she bent to take the clothes that Isabella had provided. He knew there was discomfort. He had used her, more than he should after her first time. When she returned to him he pulled her towards him and kissed her mouth. "I promise you—"

"The last time you promised you would return to me in a day—and then it was hell," she hushed him with a finger to his lips. She held the shirt up for him and he turned and slid his arms into the sleeves. He turned around to face her and allowed her the wifely duty and doing up the laces. "I know you will come for me like I know I shall wait for you. But if you should not—" When he would have protested, she shook her head. "If you should not, I know it is because I am in Henri's court, where it would be impossible."

"Nothing is impossible," he told her. "I am in Spain."

"I do not know how much fortune favors us, my lord," she told him. "But if a visit to the French court should place you in this danger, I would rather know you are in London."

He closed his hands around her wrist. When she met his gaze, he told her, as sure as he had ever been of anything in his entire life. "Unacceptable." He raised her hands to his lips and kissed, breathed.

She frowned. "You will not stay in London? If there is danger, Chuck, stay. I will come to you."

"No."

She tried to pull her hands away, but he kept his grip. "I will come to you," she repeated. "When the time is right."

"Not," he said, kissing her eyebrow, "acceptable."

"You are--," she said. "I have no words."

"I would not be apart from you longer," he told her. "We have been apart too long." His lips teased hers, and then he said, "I should have married you at the Vanderbilts—the day Nathaniel Archibald lost his mind."

The memory had been a stinging one before that day, when the man who had been honor bound to wed her turned his back on her. But now Nathaniel's rejection faded into the background, and she could only remember the night as her rediscovery of the moonlight stranger. "We had only just met," she reminded him.

"Even then I knew," he told her.

"We were far too young."

"Waiting is for the uncertain," he answered. He pressed a kiss into the palm of her hand. "We are not uncertain."

He knew he loved her long before the Tower, and had married her because there was no sense delaying what he knew was inevitable.

And she would not wait. Evelyn had waited. And his father had sworn he loved his mother. But Bartholomew had made the love of his life wait, abandoned her with a son to raise on her own—all in service of a crown he had eventually detested.

The day grew warmer, and he heard the soft footsteps outside. They had come. He swallowed. Chuck tugged at her and wrapped her in his arms. She heard them coming too, because she relaxed in his embrace and he felt her just breathe. They were silent in that embrace. When the knock inevitably came, they did not part. He looked down and wiped her tears with his thumb.

"Princess Isabella has come."

"Can I trust her with you?"

And she nodded, patted his chest then thought twice it seemed because instead she nuzzled her nose above his heart. "Trust her," she assured him, although he knew from the few years at court that one could never ever blindly trust a monarch. There was no family, no blood—not when it came to the scepter.

The princess, when she stepped into the room, was stunning, yet paled in comparison to his countess. Chuck noted the features similar to his wife and recognized how it was that Blair managed the feat of freeing him. He studied Princess Isabella, observed the regal way she carried herself as she walked towards his wife. He watched closely as the princess stood before Blair, then tipped Blair's face to assess her.

In the strong command that threaded through Isabella's stance, there was a simple care, a quiet gentleness. He was, for a part, satisfied.

The princess nodded at one of the soldiers, and the man stepped forward with a blue hooded cape lined with ermine fur. The soldier thrust it towards Chuck.

"For your journey," Isabella told him.

Chuck accepted the cape, then looked towards Blair. He flung it around his back. Blair stepped forward, past her cousin, and wordlessly took the two cords. She pulled it under his chin, then tied it together with trembling hands. She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth, unashamed. "Until I see you," she whispered. And then, she turned her back on him and walked towards Isabella. The men pulled him forward to the tethered horses out in the churchyard.

She held herself, regal, no less royal, no less proud than the woman who would someday hold the throne of an empire.

His wife. With one quick glance towards him she gave him a glimpse of her heart and he saw it break as he pulled himself up upon the horse. But her eyes were dry, and she watched somber and brave.

Isabella placed a hand on the small of her back. He looked back towards her as the horses trotted forward. The princess led her to a waiting litter.

~o~o~o~o~

Carter Baizen's black hooded cloak was like many others, yet Serena spotted him easily at the docks. She hurried to him. That she had no property, no bags, no clothes to carry made her swifter. She ran towards him and called his name.

The spy—the ambassador—turned around and saw her. He frowned at the sight, and Serena felt the cold bitterness radiate from his body.

"Take your ship," he instructed her. Serena glanced at the England-bound vessel and nodded. "Leave now, Serena. You may tell Walsingham about Philip's plan for Parma. Tell him everything that Lady Blair had found and relish in your success."

The boy at the docks hollered the call to board, and Serena looked up. She needed to climb abroad lest she be left, forgotten in a kingdom that detested her. But Carter—

"I wish you did not despise me," she said.

Carter turned cold eyes back to her. "In England you sent an innocent woman to the Tower—"

"At Lord Walsingham's command," she protested.

"And here you sent an untrained lady into danger that should be rightfully ours."

"It needed to be done!"

Carter grasped Serena's arm, then tugged her forward towards him. She thrust her chin up, proud yet shamed. Serena was a marvelous confliction of what she needed to be, of who she was. "By whom?" he demanded. "By Walsingham, or by you?"

"I needed it done!" she cried out. Carter's grip on her loosened, and he pushed away to leave. Yet this time it was her turn and she caught his arm. "Carter, please. I cannot bear your hatred. I was—I am a spy."

"I have been many men, Serena," he answered quietly, "for this job. But within every man I was, I existed. If my name, or my life, had faded over the years, Serena, I kept my integrity. I would not have used an innocent to further myself."

When he began to walk away, she spilled, "For my father, Carter."

He paused, turned his head. She sighed in relief that he listened.

"This was the last assignment. If I succeeded, Walsingham would tell me where my father is."

Carter turned around.

Serena nodded. "When I was a child, my father was exiled. He was a traitor, but he was fortunate to escape the axe." She shrugged. "Or the noose. But they did send him away in exile, and I know not where."

"And Walsingham does?"

Serena nodded. "Carter, I need to find my father."

Carter's eyes narrowed. "And you believe that Walsingham will truly tell you where he is?"

"I have worked for him—committed God knows what sins to please Lord Walsingham—for a year. Surely he will fulfill his end of this bargain, Carter."

For a moment, he appeared torn. He glanced towards the docks, then towards the dirty paved path the opposite direction. "Lady Blair will be sent to Paris," he murmured, and Serena did not need to ask how he knew when the countess had been missing.

But she knew he took pride in his integrity, his loyalty to Lady Rose. It was far nobler than anything she had for Lord Walsingham. She wanted to tell him to go. "If you need to leave, Carter, consider why you are here. If you truly detest me, why have you come here?" His eyes narrowed. "Have you perhaps found another mission—outside of Lady Rose and your blind faith? Have you perhaps—"

He stalked towards her, then caught her lips in a kiss. Serena's arms wrapped around his neck. "You will destroy every last piece of me," he admitted.

And Serena knew he would abandon his year-long cause. She acted quickly, then closed her hand around his. "Board the ship with me. Face Walsingham with me," she told him.

He nodded. "I will help you find your father, Serena. I will help you get out from under Walsingham's clutches. Lady Blair—I have no wish to abandon her, but if this is what you need—"

She burst into a smile. There was no passage for Carter, nothing to use. She heard the angry call from the end of the docks and saw Philip's men arrive in a thunderous storm of hooves. They pulled down a gentleman, and pushed him towards the ship. Serena threw her arm up to cover her face when a gust of ocean breeze ripped through the land.

The ermine-lined hood fell back from the prisoner's head, and revealed the Earl of Warwick.

Her eyes widened.

"Carter," she whispered.

"I see him," came the quiet answer.

"We can get you aboard," she said. She turned to Carter, then drew up the black hood over his head and tied it firmly at his chin. He had been in the business far too long to need instructions. When she glanced at Chuck Bass, then back at Carter, Carter nodded in recognition of the plan. "I cannot wait for this adventure," she told him.

tbc


	20. Part 19

**Part 19**

Serena van der Woodsen was a madwoman, she was.

Chuck Bass watched in awe as Walsingham's ward—a spy of the crown—burst towards the guard with a cry. "Lord Warwick!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with terror and remorse. "My lord Chuck, what have they done to you?" Serena ran past the stunned guards who for a moment were struck in awe at the golden beauty that launched herself at his feet. Serena rose and with gloved hands she grasped at his face. "You are cut and bruised." She glared at the guards around him. "Have you hurt the earl of Warwick? Have you?" she demanded. "You are not fit to be in his presence, let alone touch a hair on his head!"

Chuck saw the man standing yards away at the side of the ship, watching silently in his black hooded cape. His face was hidden by the drawn hood, but he knew from the stance that it was none other than Lady Rose's most trusted—the man who had been tasked with the noble task of retrieving his Blair.

The man nodded imperceptibly at him. Chuck turned to Serena and saw her then beat her fists at one of the guards.

"When he reaches England, you shall see!" she warned.

And then, with all her might, Serena van der Woodsen threw around him an unwelcome embrace. Chuck stiffened with her arms around him, for he had not forgotten the careless mission that had endangered his wife. With his wrists bound at his back, Chuck need not pretend a returning embrace. Instead he listened, for he knew well enough that she and Carter Baizen had concocted a plan.

Despite his distrust, any plan would do. He had promised his wife, and he would fulfill it to the very last. He could not bear to part.

"Two guards—we are prepared for more," she bit out within his earshot. "I shall distract these eyes, and you must stumble towards Baizen at the back." And then, louder, her pitch higher, she exclaimed as she raised the fur-trimmed hood of the cloak over his head, "I cannot look at your wounds, my lord. What horror. Que barbaridad!" she said loudly.

Chuck lowered his head, hiding his face from view. When Serena launched herself towards the guards and maneuvered back so that they would turn to follow her, he slid towards the hidden crevice of the dock, right by the ship, and staggered towards Baizen. He turned his back and thrust his bound arms towards the man.

Carter's fingers were quick and adept as they worked through the rope. "She has been taken to court, and they shall leave post haste," the spy told him. "Isabella's soldiers shall escort her in the travel to France. Every one of those men know who you are, and you must stay away."

"Not away," Chuck argued.

"Patience, my lord," Carter cautioned him. "The princess has the face of an angel, but she does not mince her words. These men shall dispatch of your wife as quickly as they would yourself if they discover that Lady Blair has broken her word. Take my cape." When Chuck's hands were freed, he worked to remove his cloak. "I need passage to London to free Serena from Lord Walsingham," Carter said. "Let me take your place."

"And I take yours," Chuck agreed, handing Isabella's fur cloak and covering himself in the black cape that Carter had worn since England.

"I abandon my mission to you. I trust you shall keep her, and ensure she reaches her mother alive and well."

Chuck grasped Carter's shoulder and turned him around, then bound his wrists together with the rope. He drew the fur hood down, then took Carter by his elbow and dragged him towards the light. Serena looked up and eyed the two. She rushed to Carter's side and clutched his arm.

For good measure, Chuck pushed Carter towards Serena and Isabella's guards. "Come, my lord. We must away from these wretched Spaniards." Towards Chuck, she threw silently, "I beg pardon, my lord."

Chuck did not speak, merely nodded. His heart raced. It was going to work. The asinine plan that the two had dreamed up was going to work. Isabella's guards created a barricade of their bodies between him and Carter Baizen. Serena led Carter up the ramp, towards the ship.

Chuck remained on land, and looked up at the large looming merchant ship. He watched in the refuge of the thick black cape and saw the two figures emerge aboard. He did not move from his place, and neither did they. The ship pushed away from the port and even then Serena and Carter stood stationary. Serena raised a hand in farewell, and when they were far enough away, Chuck raised his hand as well.

He took a deep breath of the cold, sea air.

"Sir, your horse," he heard from behind him. Chuck turned and saw a proud charger horse brought to him, saddled and shoed for long travel, strapped with a satchel packed with supplies. "For your trip to Paris, sir," the young man clarified. Chuck licked his lips. He inserted his hand into the inner pocket of the cape and felt the cold hard coins within. He handed one to the boy. "Gracias," he muttered.

"De nada, senor." And then, "Vaya con Dios."

Chuck nodded, and took the reins for the horse in his hands. He tentatively placed a foot on the rest and half-expected Philip's men to jump on him. Nobody came. Chuck jumped onto the saddle and looked down and around him. He kept the hood in place, then urged the horse to turn around and on the road back to the court.

In court, Blair curtsied deeply in front of the man who has once been most powerful in the world. She held the bow deep and steady, and fear and awe threaded in his veins. King Philip had once been England's sovereign, she knew, in the time of Queen Mary. Once upon that time blood ran through the streets and the rivers as Philip sought to reawaken the religion of their ancestors.

Many of Harold Waldorf's forefathers perished in that persecution, that hunt.

Isabella would think twice before lashing her, but Philip need not have reservations. They had no common blood, no true connection. He could order her killed and she had no plans of dying, no peaceful acceptance prepared. No. She had discovered a love to live for, and she would survive until she found it again. Philip's deep voice commanded she rise, and rise she did.

He motioned her over with his hand. Blair nodded and walked forward to her cousin's father. Philip raised the dark opal rosary in his hand. Blair eyed the golden cross that hung from it. She cupped it with gloved hands and kissed it.

"You worship my God," Philip told her.

"I worship God," Blair answered.

"And you adore the English whore?" he asked in spite.

"I adore my queen, majesty," Blair answered, emotionless, instantly, dispassionately. She wondered now if it was still true, because her heart did not leap the way it did before at the mention of Elizabeth.

"The only woman that you must adore is the Blessed Virgin," he reminded her. Philip bent forward, and Blair froze when the king tipped her chin up and turned her face from one side to the other. He grunted and Blair wondered if it was in pleasure or displeasure. "You have the look of my dead wife, Isabella's mother, God rest her soul."

And at that, Blair felt the tension release from her shoulders. Her lips curved, only a little, lest he take offense at the relief she had at the mention of his dead wife.

"She was pure and innocent—what wonderful woman," he recollected. Philip eyed Blair in sorrow. "She was bred and raised in the church. What horror I feel when I look upon you."

"Father!" Isabella exclaimed at his side.

"You have her blood, her body, her face—yet raised in England without the guidance of the one true church, Lady Blair, you have become tainted." Blair's eyes narrowed. She stepped backwards out of the king's reach. "I have been told you are Warwick's wife. How unfortunate."

Her lips thinned. "I am proud to be Chuck Bass' wife."

"A misfortune," Philip told her. "You could have been so much more."

She had held her tongue too long now, she thought. "Your majesty, my marriage is none of your concern."

"You have been raised by barbarians—Waldorf and Northumberland. They did not open your eyes to the promise of your future." The king rose from his throne and assessed her, and Blair shuddered at the inspection. It was the first that she had felt like a chattel. "You could be a queen in your own right, Lady Blair. You have the blood of the Medici. You have same blood that courses through the kings of France these past generations. You have the blood of Isabella. You have the blood of the Austrian kings." His voice dropped. "Of emperors, Lady Blair."

Her hand rested on her belly, heartbreakingly empty as the morning brought his departure and her menses. She had not known how fervently she wished to keep part of him with her until she bled and found that he had not had the chance to take root in her womb.

"And my children, majesty, will have the same blood, as well as the blood of the Kingmakers of England." She licked her lips. "You know the brains, the power, the wealth behind the English throne had long been the earls of Warwick."

Philip rubbed his chin, mulling over her words. He turned to Isabella, then said, "She has your brains, hija—the same intelligence behind your eyes, the same pride." He turned back to Blair, then offered, "I can negotiate a fine alliance for you."

"An alliance."

"You are far too fine to be wasted on an Englishman," Philip answered. "There are Florentine princes who shall happily take you, and my treasury has a thirst for Italian gold."

"You cannot barter me. I am wed."

"And the church can easily consider your marriage null."

"My marriage is consummated, your majesty," Blair said.

"There are ways to deny it," Philip answered. "It takes a few tears, Lady Blair, which I am certain you can manage. It takes a dagger and a tiny prick of your finger. A few drops of your marriage bed, and you become a virgin bride."

Blair closed her eyes, remembered the way that Chuck had wiped off with his torn shirt the bloodstains and the seed from the tender skin of her thighs.

"I will kill myself before another man uses me," she threatened, a stark lie, but an effective one nonetheless. King Philip, in his fear of the church, would not dare her hand to commit the unpardonable sin.

Isabella's hand rested on her arm. "Cousin," she said gently, "fear not. Forgive the king. We shall not press you. We shall send you to your mother, as I promised."

Blair opened her eyes reluctantly, then eyed the king. Philip nodded, then informed her, "Off to France, if you wish. But Isabella shall write to your mother and Catarina. If you shall be married, I reserve the right to negotiate the contract." The king motioned to the guard, and Blair heard the presence behind her. "I shall give you a companion who has proven her worth to the kingdom."

Blair turned around and saw the loathsome sight. It was Jenny Humphrey, unafraid, cold in her regard.

"This girl?"

"She will serve you," Isabella informed her. "Jenny has given us privileged information that allowed us to save you."

"She will serve no one but herself."

"Your mother has entrusted your return to Jenny," Isabella told her. "We shall allow her to complete her mission."

Blair shook her head, then strode past Jenny and outside. Jenny followed behind her. "Blair," she called. "Lady Blair!" Blair did not turn around. In a thin, desperate cry, she burst, "They shall kill me if I stay. I have no use, and I am not of noble blood!"

"They will not kill you," Blair snapped.

"They shall put me to work in the kitchens!" Jenny cried out. "It is worse than death."

Blair's eyes widened at the girl in disbelief. "Working in the kitchens is a noble occupation, Jenny!"

"So says the woman who has not worked a day in her life," Jenny argued. "You have everything, Lady Blair. Since you were a child, you had it all!"

"Kitchen work is far better than the fate you would have handed Chuck, or myself," Blair spat. "I would rather travel to France myself than have you."

Jenny shook her head. She clutched Blair's arm. Isabella made her way outside and found them. She motioned to the guards the moment that Jenny touched Blair. "I have seen the paintings on Lady Rose's walls, tasted the food from King Henri's banquets. I was not meant to be a servant," Jenny said. She pleaded, "You cannot know what it is to desire something so fervently you cannot breathe without it!"

Blair held up a hand to stay Isabella's men. She looked at the girl before her, the rabid girl with such rabid desires. She remembered the blind way she had pursued her desire to serve Queen Elizabeth, and now the sinking depression that settled over her with each breath without her husband. She swallowed, then turned to Isabella and wrapped her arms around the princess.

Blair walked towards the carriage prepared for her and entered. Jenny climbed aboard as well.

Blair drew her gown away. "You are not allowed to brush against me, or my gown," she told Jenny coldly. "If you do, I shall abandon you on the side of the road."

Jenny bit her lip, then looked out her window. Blair pushed her curtain towards Jenny, blocking her view. Blair assessed the gathered soldiers outside, their horses surrounding the carriage, serving as her escort in her travel across the Spanish countryside. They were pomp and regal, and such a wonderfully colorful prison they gave her.

There was a rider several yards from them, astride a horse, in a billowing black cape.

Jenny gasped in fear. "It is Carter Baizen. He has come to punish me for what I have done."

Blair's fingers curled as she grasped the curtain. She was enraptured by the proud way the man sat. When they rolled forward, the hooded man followed behind—far enough that the guards did not flag him, yet close enough that they never lost him.

The days came and went, and the journey had become a ritual of food and sitting within the carriage. In the night they stopped at the inns littered at the side of the road, and at daybreak they rose and began another day.

It was one of those days, a day before they reached the border, that it happened. Blair and her party arrived at the rest stop late in the night. Down below, the Spanish guards played cards, exchanging ruckus laughter as they swapped tales. Blair made her way up the stairs, carrying a lamp as she entered her room.

She then found herself pressed back against the wall. Blair struggled, then felt the warm lips over hers. She drowned in the familiar kiss. Her heart skipped a beat. One hand rose to hold onto his nape. She met his eyes in the flickering light.

"My lord," she breathed.

He smiled. Immediately hot tears flooded her eyes. "Not a moment longer," he said to her, a reminder of his vow. "We shall not be apart a moment longer."

"How?"

His answer was a tender kiss upon her brow. She raised the lamp up between them and he blew the light out. He took the lamp from her hand and placed it down by their feet. Then, in a way he had not done before, Chuck carried her up in his arms. Blair did not wait. While he walked towards the freshly made bed she pressed kisses on his jaw and undid the ribbon of the black cape. It fell heavily down and caught between them. He laid her down on the clean bed and the black cape covered his lower body as he moved over her.

Their mouths locked in passion while his fingers worked to free her from her clothing. Blair pushed his shirt off his body and licked at the healed wounds, at the little scars left on his chest.

Chuck threw the black cape off and it fell to the floor. He knelt above her, and she sat up on the bed and pushed his trousers down his hips. His manhood sprang free and stood in attention, right by her face. Blair looked up at his face, then grasped it with both hands.

"You have missed me, my lord."

His fingers buried in her wet slit, and she gasped. He responded, "As much as you missed me, countess." Her hip bucked up.

She turned her head and kissed his stiff member. Chuck's free hand held her by her throat as her mouth worked over him. She was spurred on by the gasps and the breathy grunts he produced as she slowly licked at the tip. Her throat worked, and she felt his hand cup her jaw. Blair opened her mouth and slowly drew him inside. When he hit the back of her throat, she gagged and he pulled out of her at once. She flushed. He gave her a smile, then kissed her slack mouth.

"Next time," he told her. "Next time when we have all the time in the world." She nodded. "Now I need you. It has been too long."

So Blair clung to his neck and settled back on the bed, with his body following close and resting over her. "On a bed, Chuck. For the first time."

He settled over her parted legs. She raised her legs and rested them over his hips and without hesitation, he entered her. Blair's breath released, and his forehead fell onto her collarbone. She was wet, unexpectedly. She wanted him, and he rejoiced at the knowledge that she had not forgotten the pleasure that was his embrace. "So tight, my love."

She moved underneath him, and she was heaven and hell inside. "It has been so long," she sobbed.

He was grateful for the clean sheets. He did not dare close his eyes though the pleasure drew his eyelids heavy. It was such rare pleasure, such event, such fantasy to have her, that he could not miss a second of it. He was pushing inside her, edging her closer and closer to satisfaction. Blair held tight to him and he felt her quickly impending spasms as she burst in his arms. She grew slicker, tighter, more erratic underneath and around him. When she squeezed the life from him, Chuck drove inside her several times and spilled himself into her waiting body.

He fell on top of her, and he moved to take his weight off her form, but her legs tightened around him and her arms grasped his slippery shoulders. "Stay," she pleaded. "Take root inside me."

Chuck raised his head, gasping for breath. He met her sleepy eyes. "Did I hear you right?"

She nodded and yawned, holding tight to him. "Plant your seed deep in my womb, Chuck. I want a child. I want your mark on me," she told him. "I want to be yours. I want this--" She raised head from the bed, and found his lips. "I want us irreversible."

And so there they stayed, as he fell asleep atop her, half-inside her still, their fluids mixed together, drying on their skin in the cool night air. He woke in the night and looked at her as she slept. His hand crept between them and he placed a hand between them, over her womb, praying he would take root inside because it was what she wanted, then praying for an epiphany on a way back home.

Morning, and it was Jenny Humphrey's voice that drew them out of their sleep. Reluctantly they disentangled their limbs. Blair raised herself on her elbow and drew heavy legs under her hips. Naked, in the light of day, she was a perfect portrait. He crawled towards her on the bed and kissed a nipple, then he slowly drew it into his mouth. She closed her hand over his wrist and drew his hand down to her belly.

"Do you think your heir lies asleep inside of me now?"

His breathing was heavy, and he wondered at the overwhelming feeling that washed over him. He closed his mouth over hers in a kiss. "I love you," he declared.

The knock grew louder. "A moment, if you please!" she called out. Blair turned back to Chuck and held her face in both of her hands. She drew him close and kissed him back. "I love you. Only you." Blair nodded towards the discarded cape. "Now go. Tomorrow, Isabella's guards shall fall away when we cross the border to France."

"And then it shall be Catarina's men."

"None of whom know who you are," Blair declared. She helped him with his clothing, and flung Carter's cape around his shoulders. "Come to my room. Meet me at the inn. Run into me, by chance, at a town. I want to see you out in the sun."

He drew her hand to his lips. "Anything you want, countess."

Blair nodded, then drew a robe and pulled it over her body. She opened the door and eyed Jenny. "I shall make my way to dine. Go." She closed the door.

tbc


	21. Part 20

**AN: **Thank you all for letting me know your thoughts. I'm grateful you are reading this fic.

**Part 20**

He could have been caught right there, in this pretense of being less than the man he was. But for her he would do anything. It was proof of insanity, therefore, that he urged the horse towards the French guards who were tasked to accompany her just as the Spanish escorts fell off at the border.

The captain of the guard gestured him over, and Chuck jumped off his horse, the black cape swirling around his legs, impeding quick movement. Carter only ever used the black cape for the sanctuary of the disguise. It could not be the ease of movement. When the guard asked him for his name, Chuck slid a hand to his pocket and the front of the cape fell away.

It revealed a singular brooch, a rose medallion, pinned to the inner lining. Without another question, the captain waved him through.

Chuck looked towards the carriage and saw the parted curtain, found Blair watching, and managed a smile. Her lips curved at his assurance, and when the curtain drew back down he sighed in relief.

The crossing to Paris was much easier than the travel across Spain. Along the countryside there were more inns, more travel lodges, and the rest became more frequent. From afar he watched, and every time the travel party broke for a meal, he studied her face, her stance, the way she moved. She was exhausted from the travel. Rightly so. If he remembered the only time she traveled so far was the move to the Vanderbilt keep, and then to Northumbria, eventually to London. And even then it had taken years in between. Since their marriage she had crossed the Channel and through kingdoms.

So in respite, when nighttime came and the guards were asleep, Chuck made his way to her rented chambers and kissed away the torturous miles.

"You are weary," he said against the wet hair at her temple, when he chanced upon her in the bath. He took the towel from her pruned hand and gently rubbed away the dust of the road.

She was no longer surprised at his presence, in fact expected him to arrive. In the dark of the night, she stayed up now to wait. Because he ever came, whether the moon was out or hidden. "So are you," she answered. Her wet hand rose from the bathwater, droplets dripping like silver rain from the tips of her fingers. Her hand rested on his thigh, firm and sore from the weeks of riding. "How unused you are to riding astride a horse for so long."

A courtier, after all, rode for hunting, for tournaments. And for stretches of travel he had the fine carriage that he had used to take her to court.

He knelt at the side of the tub, and leaned close to capture her lips for a kiss. "Better sore than adrift in the Channel, wondering when I should see your face again."

She murmured deep in her throat, in pleasure, in response to the kiss. "You only need to close your eyes."

"To dream of you?"

"Yes," she whispered.

And then he rose, leaning over her, her body looming over the bathwater. "I would rather a battered body and hold you, than in a cold bed dreaming."

And every night, it had become a ritual. He threw the windows open, removed the boards from every chamber in every lodge she rested. At night, the whole world became their own. Within the four corners of strange, rented rooms, he was her husband and she his wife.

Halfway on the road to Paris, he came to her when she was too exhausted to move. And so he helped her roll to her stomach and worked her muscles with fingers trained by the finest, just as he and Nathaniel Archibald had learned from paid women during the years they were away for college. An hour into the session, when she was half-asleep she turned on her back and pulled him to her, kissed his mouth with gentle prodding of her mouth. When she reached between them to hold him, he caught her wrist and shook his head.

"Come, my lord. It's night," she said with hushed urgency.

"You have no strength for me tonight," Chuck told her, in a gentle lecture, a soft denial.

"We cannot miss one night," she told him, as if it were a crime. "We have lost so many nights together, since we wed," Blair reminded him.

He rested on the bed beside her, then turned to face her. "And more than made up for lost time since the churchyard, Blair."

"I care not," she insisted stubbornly. "I need you, my lord."

She rested back on the bed, her hair forming a dark halo around her head. He covered her body with his and he kissed her eyelids. Chuck shook his head when he saw her half-lidded eyes. Her hands grasped his arms. He kissed a trail across her jawbone. She released her breath through her parted lips, and he kissed down her throat a trail down between the valley of her breasts.

Her fingers buried in his hair. Chuck felt her legs move to cradle his body. He moved lower, and his hands tangled in the hem of her nightgown. He looked up and saw his wife fast asleep, with her lips curved in pleasure. He was straining since the touch of her hand. Chuck shook his head and instead buried his nose one last time against her mound to breathe her scent, and pressed a gentle kiss upon the inside of her thigh.

Then he climbed back up and drew her into his embrace. Her arm moved to wrap around his waist, and he hiked her thigh over his hip. He could not bury himself inside her tonight, but the warm cradle of body provided gentle comfort to his.

Since Blair had been exhausted most times he had seen her, Chuck took it upon himself to care of his wife in a fashion he had not done since the early days of school with Nathaniel. He had spent too long in the court and knew he could not do it himself anymore, but he drew a few precious coins from the pocket of Baizen's black cape and found a servant boy from the lodge to do the deed.

They were in a bustling town, and the plan had been set up and executed perfectly. Blair's party converged at the stable for the next day of travel. Within moments the captain of the guard called off the day and sent everyone back to the inn.

He was waiting in her room when she returned. The moment she saw him, her eyebrows rose. Her lips quivered and finally settled into a smile.

"Countess," he greeted her, lying back on the bed with his upper body raised by his elbows, "is anything amiss?"

She reached for the ribbon of her cloak, and he stood and walked over to her and took the edges into his fingers. He tugged at the ends and the cloak fluttered to the ground. She grinned, then told him, "A broken wheel and axel on my carriage, which seemed strong yesterday."

"How unexpected," he added.

She nodded. "It seems it would take a day to replace. The captain heartily apologizes."

"An entire day?" he repeated. "What a shame. You would have nothing to do for an entire day than sleep until noon, perhaps venture out into the town. There is a carnival today, and much for trade." He dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Sleep through the morning. Perhaps you may run into some kind stranger come noon."

When he moved to leave, she caught her hand.

"Come sleep," she invited. "You have been as tired as I."

"Go on, my love," he told her. "There is business to take care of."

~o~o~o~

When the sun was high up in the sky, right above their heads, Blair ventured out of the lodge in a plan green frock. She pinned up her hair in a bun at her nape, then drew her cloak over her head. The guards were occupied at the stables, determining how best to fix the wheel. She slipped towards the street and made her way to the bustling marketplace.

Chuck was right. The wares were plenty and unique. As she waited for him to find her, Blair spotted a shop with folded cloth than glowed under the sun. She picked up the hem of her skirt and made her way towards it.

"Silk from the Orient," the man said.

Blair's lips parted, and she knelt in front of a bronze wrap. She reached out a hand to touch it. The man caught her wrist.

"The cloth is soft, sinfully smooth, cool to the skin," he stated.

Blair's eyes narrowed. "Let me touch it."

The man's eyes flickered from her head to her toe, then shook his head. "No need."

Her chin thrust up. "How much is it?"

At the question, the man was amused. He gave a loud guffaw, and Blair flushed. She backed away from the stall and blinked away tears of humiliation. When she felt the first teardrop track down her cheek, she hurriedly reached up to brush it away. When she turned the corner, she found herself standing in front of another stall of trinkets.

She should have learned from the other stall. Yet Blair had accepted before that she was weak. This was but one of the ways. Unfortunately for her, she was far too attracted to clothing and jewelry. It was dismal, because her father disapproved of such lavish displays of wealth, and Bartholomew's Northumbria had been so far north it did not matter.

The trinkets were cheap metal and semi-precious stone, but even then with the utter lack of possessions she had taken with her in the travel to France, they appeared more beautiful. Blair spied a particular piece of interest when she saw the bronze butterfly ring.

"There you are," she heard his voice.

Blair placed the ring back and spun around. There were none of the soldiers, none of Philip and Isabella's eyes in the crowd. She broke into a large smile, different under the afternoon sun. "Why, there's the stranger I have been waiting for," she greeted.

Chuck nodded, then stepped forward and offered her his hand.

Not since Elizabeth's court had he held her hand before anyone else. She eagerly tangled their fingers together. She felt so exposed when no one else was looking. No one else knew. No one would ever wonder why. To the rest of the crowd in the busy marketplace, they were nameless and no one.

In her exhilaration she grasped the front of his shirt and pulled him down for a long kiss.

When her lips parted from his she whispered, "Everyone can see."

"Everyone can see," he repeated, gruff, unprotesting.

Her hands locked at his nape and she drew him back down and kissed him more deeply. She pressed up her body against his, and even delighted at the giggles and the cheers, even the jeers around them. "Everyone can see," she gasped.

She felt his straining manhood against her stomach, and felt the heavy wetness between her thighs.

"We are not retiring to the inn," he whispered to her. "We can hide ourselves in the night, Blair, but this—" His hand wrapped around hers and he pulled her with him back towards the shop of the trinkets. "We shall replace it with the family stone, with my mother's ring, when we reach home," he told her, as if reaching home was truly part of the plan. He slid the cheap bronze butterfly ring onto her finger.

Blair looked down at the pathetic piece of metal, and knew a single spoon in her old home cost more than the butterfly on her finger. Even so, her bronze ring grew more and more precious in her eyes. "Now I am truly wed," she said to him.

"To a bronze smith," he teased.

Chuck tugged at her hand and he walked with her towards the small piece of park where four presenters played with their various instruments, and jumped and danced for the people surrounding them. Elizabeth's minstrels were far better, more entertaining, cleaner and brighter in their costumes. But her husband found them a tree. Underneath Carter's black cape served as protection from the itchy grass. He drew out a small sack and took out a few pieces of bread, a small block of cheese and a bottle of wine.

"I shall have them air out Kenilworth, and in Warwick you shall have a feast," he told her.

There had been so many promises exchanged between them now. There had been far too many plans.

He opened the bottle of wine and it was thin and stale, far inferior to what Essex imported into England. Even then Blair took a mouthful and bit into the day old bread, closed her eyes as she swallowed like they were ambrosia and other heavenly delights. He laid back against the tree trunk, and she curled up beside him and used his arm as her pillow.

"Tell me about Warwick."

It had been such a test of their faith, the lands surrounding Warwick. And from her inheritance he took Kenilworth and a pasture land that more than doubled his herd. But her voice was faint and dreamy, and the request so clean, so devoid of any bitterness.

"Northumbria is a wilderness compared to Warwick," he told her, knowing about her love for the harsh moors and climate of his father's land, of the land he would someday inherit. But he wanted her to love his own land, his own name, and she could hear the need thrumming through his voice. "Kenilworth is the queen's beloved summer house. It is a large castle surrounded by a moat. It boasts of many love affairs, Blair—Simon de Montfort and Eleanor, the queen and Dudley. But," he paused, "Kenilworth is yours now. And they shall all pale in comparison to us."

She closed her eyes, imagined the castle in the vast land where animals roamed free. She imagined the moat, which could so easily keep the whole world away. Yes, she could live in Kenilworth. She rested the palm of her hand over his heart.

"There are summers when we can lie just like this and watch the clouds cross the sky," he said.

She imagined dark-haired little children lying over a bright blanket on either side of her and Chuck, pointing to formations in the clouds that neither she nor her husband could recognize.

But they were beautiful liars and they would say they did see the lambs, and the trees, and the faces of their grandparents on the clouds—to the delight of their little spawns.

Yes, she would live in Kenilworth and have all of it.

She heard the faint voice calling her name. She sought to ignore the intrusion, but the voice drew closer and closer every moment. Blair gasped, then sat up and saw Jenny Humphrey running towards them. Blair stumbled to her feet.

He caught her hand. "Stop."

Blair glanced back at Jenny, then at her husband. "No. I must meet her and draw her away. She can well get you killed, Chuck."

He shook his head. "We are far enough away from Philip. And I know Jenny," Chuck told Blair. "She committed a mistake. I will not disrupt this heaven for Jenny Humphrey." Chuck drew her back down to sit on the black cape.

A few more seconds, and Jenny would be upon them. Even as she tried, Blair could not settle back down against Chuck. The voice, the knowledge of the impending arrival, weighed heavy on her shoulders. When finally Jenny reached them wide-eyed, she gasped at the sight of Chuck Bass.

"I thought it was Carter Baizen!" she gasped. When Jenny moved close, Blair motioned for her to stop. Jenny's teart-filled eyes turned to Chuck in plea. "My lord, you must know how terribly sorry I am. I lie awake at night with horror at what I have done."

Blair's eyes narrowed at the girl, and she turned to her husband, daring him to forgive what she could not. Chuck drew a breath, then nodded at Blair. Jenny swallowed the rejection and turned to Blair. "My lady, it is time to return to the inn."

Before she left, Blair looked down at the butterfly ring on her finger. She rose on the tips of her toes and kissed his mouth. "Come to me tonight," she requested.

When he did, he came with a bowl of fruit that glistened still with water from the wash. Chuck locked the door behind him and saw her in the bed. Blair smiled in welcome, then threw back the covers and revealed to him that she was naked. Chuck walked forward, and so she did she. She met him halfway across the room. His hands settled on her bare hips. Her fingers worked on the laces of his doublet.

When his clothing dropped to the floor, Blair's arms rested on his shoulders. His hands cupped her buttocks and he lifted her up against him. Her thighs settled over his hips. With one hand he reached between them and positioned himself at her entrance. She bit her lip when she settled her body over him so when she slid down, he slid up and into her warm channel.

In Kenilworth, in Northumbria, in their chambers in Elizabeth's court, in the Tower, the garden shed in Isabella's church or wherever they found themselves in Paris. When he was inside her, pumping in a rhythm that was their own, spilling himself and coating her inner walls with his seed—where did not matter.

"Welcome home, my lord," she moaned into his ear.

tbc


	22. Part 21

**Part 21**

As they drew closer to her mother's home, and witnessed the sprawling grandeur that led to the isolated estate, Blair grew pensive within the carriage. The city, as she grew nearer and nearer to the large mansion, was sophisticated, a true marvel. Jenny Humphrey drew herself up from the slumped figure she had become to sit regally, like she were more and higher than she truly was. On her face, Blair saw the nervous excitement that oddly enough, despite how she herself apprehensively looked forward to discovering her mother once again, seemed a tad more intense than what Blair felt.

"You truly wish to return to her," Blair said in wonder.

Before her, Jenny turned her gaze from the window view to Blair. Jenny flushed in embarrassment, but Blair saw no denial. "I was nothing until Lady Rose took me under her wing," explained the girl. "I was her daughter."

Blair shook her head. "No, Jenny," she said, needing the other girl to know, to set her expectations before they were dashed. The night before, she had lain in her husband's arms and he had told her about the girl who wanted everything. And when he spoke to her of Jenny's seduction, while he threaded his fingers through her hair and dropped kisses on her eyelids—when she knew he was hers and only hers—all she felt was pity for the girl. Jenny was right in one thing. Blair had everything. "I am Eleanor's daughter. You were a girl for whom she took interest."

Jenny's eyes narrowed. "She taught me how to act. She taught me art and music. She gave me clothes to wear. She was my mother."

She was so very sorry for the girl. "I am certain she will be grateful that you have brought me home." Reluctantly, Blair rested her hand on the girl's knee. Jenny jerked her knee away.

"I respect no one as much as I do Lady Rose," Jenny told her. "And she cares for me like her daughter. You shall see."

Blair nodded. "I envy your joy at this approach. I am only—" She caught herself before she revealed too much of her turmoil, every one of her demons.

"You do not know what you should feel," Jenny offered. The young woman shrugged. "I felt the same when I arrived in London. It was home, but not anymore."

Blair blinked, then observed Jenny as the girl turned back to watch the approach, to relish every moment that she was closer to Blair's mother. It could not be that she was not capable of this thrill, Blair thought, that Jenny so obviously displayed. She had wanted to find her mother for so long, in those days when she knew not what fate had befallen Eleanor Waldorf. In the days when she missed her mother, and only ever remembered how Eleanor always said that she was a princess.

In those nights when she could only remember the violent, loud confrontation between her father and her mother.

No. It was not that she was incapable of the thrill. While Jenny looked out her window towards Lady Rose's mansion, Blair looked outside of hers and searched the dusty path behind the carriage and spotted the speck of black that was her Chuck upon his horse.

She felt such thrill each night that she knew her husband was to meet her.

Odd how the end changed over time. Once upon a time, so dreamlike and unreal it was now, the end that mattered was a place at Elizabeth's side. And failing that, the consolation of her mother's embrace. Now the end was just the night when in the refuge of the darkness Chuck's body joined with hers and brought her to their own little piece of heaven.

Sooner than she was prepared, her traveling party slowed and drew to a halt. It was Jenny who first drew in a sharp breath, with her cheeks flushed. The exhaustion of the travel fell from the other girl's shoulders like so much rain. They alighted from the carriage and Blair hurriedly brushed her hands down her skirt in an effort to prepare.

Jenny stood with a bright smile on her face, a look of pride. Belatedly Blair realized that this was her mission, to take Eleanor's daughter to France. And despite the fact that it was from none of Jenny's hard work that Blair was here in Paris, the girl would take credit on an assignment that Carter had failed.

There was that figure of a woman running hurriedly across the lawn towards them, and Blair's lips parted at the sight. Her heart shifted and climbed to her throat, and she wished to heaven that Chuck stood right beside her to hold her up, the way that he did when she was to curtsy to the queen. Jenny stepped forward, but Lady Rose strode past the young woman and stopped in front of Blair. With trembling hands, Lady Rose reached up and pushed the hood of Blair's cloak off her head.

Eleanor's hand fluttered to her breast, and her eyes lit with awe. Blair held her breath, and wondered why tears all of a sudden filled her eyes. "My daughter," her mother said, and Blair drank her face and placed her back into memories of those happy days when she was younger, when her mother dressed her in the prettiest gowns and applauded as Harold taught her little dances. Blair closed her eyes, and she felt her tears rain on her cheeks when Eleanor cupped her chin. "You have the face of your grandmother. The queen of France will weep at the sight of you."

"My lady—" Jenny said quietly in the background, softly, easy enough to ignore.

"Much like you weep, mother?" Blair asked.

And then she was within Eleanor's embrace, and Blair gasped to catch her breath at the tight arms around her. She opened her eyes and saw Jenny watching from her place. The envy on the girl's face was palpable, and she remembered her husband's own words to her. Jenny knew her mistake, apologized for it. The girl had no other home but Eleanor's now.

So reluctantly, Blair moved out of the embrace and said, "Mother, you remember Jenny."

Eleanor dazedly turned and saw the spy she had sent to London unprepared. She greeted her with, "Jenny, a marvelous job. I will reward you for a mission well done, my dear. Go on inside and choose chambers for yourself. You will receive a generous stipend for this task, Jenny." And then Eleanor took Blair's hand and said, "I have your rooms prepared, darling. I had them prepared since I sent Carter Baizen for you. Your gowns have been waiting too long."

But Blair's gaze rested on Jenny, saw her utter horror at the events that unfolded before her. Blair opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Jenny flung herself at Eleanor's feet.

"Lady Rose," Jenny said in a rush of words that toppled over each other in their haste, "listen to me."

But her mother looked at her, and vaguely paid attention to the girl at her feet.

Jenny blurted, "You must know that Lady Blair has been consorting with the earl of Warwick!"

Blair's breath left her body in one quick rush. Lady Rose looked down at Jenny with wide open eyes. She then turned to Blair, then closed her hand around hers tightly. There was sadness in Eleanor's eyes, and Blair was relieved that at least it was not fury. "I had hoped we did not need to speak of it until late." She wrapped an arm around Blair's shoulders then drew her close. "Isabella has written me of Philip's plan. You must know I was opposed."

"Plan? Opposed to what?" Blair whispered, confused at the turn. She had not expected Jenny's exclamation, nor this reaction. She turned a withering glare at Jenny. "Are you satisfied?"

Jenny gathered herself up, then brushed the dust from her arms. Despite her revelation, Eleanor still held close to Blair. In the girl's eyes, Blair was a traitor now, and she could not process how it was that Lady Rose did not push the Blair away. She ran towards the mansion in a flurry.

"Mother," Blair said, using a word so unfamiliar now.

Eleanor's eyes swam in her tears as she cupped her face with both her hands. "Warwick, Blair." And then, Eleanor pulled her close and placed a gentle kiss upon her brow. She was surrounded by her mother's familiar scent. For a moment she closed her eyes and remembered her when she was younger. "If I had known sooner, if I had power over the king—"

"What is it, mother?" Blair repeated.

"This arrived shortly before your party." Lady Rose took a sack from a woman waiting to her right. She drew out a furred cloak that vaguely reminded her of the one that Isabella gave to Chuck when they parted.

Blair reached for the cloak, because it reminded her of that night in the garden shed. A smile visited her lips, and she brought the cloak up to her nose. Perhaps there was still the scent of that night, with the dama de noche curling in the breeze, and the faint smell of wax and flame that drifted from the church. The cloak unfurled until the bottom hit the floor.

Blair saw the large tear at the center, and the dark, matted blood that surrounded it.

Her heart froze.

"Philip had ordered Warwick murdered on the ship to England."

Blair stared at the blood.

She would regret it later, when she had time to think. Instead she released a breath of relief. Blair grasped her mother's wrists and felt her knees grow weak from the rush of emotions that overwhelmed her. She fell to her knees on the ground. The world around her spun.

The ship for England, the one for which she had pleaded with Isabella, the ship that should have saved him from Philip's ironclad execution warrant. Carter Baizen had taken his place, disguised himself as Chuck Bass.

And then Eleanor was kneeling before her, gathering her up in motherly arms. "Warwick is dead, and Philip stakes his claim to negotiate arrangements for your wedding."

She gasped for breath. Blair clutched the cloak to her chest, found that the edges of the stain were crisp, but the matted blood was still at parts sticky and moist where it had not fully dried. She glanced at her fingers and realized she was holding Carter Baizen's blood. She pushed away from her mother and heaved on the ground.

The relief was out of place, and she despised herself for it. The stranger, the ambassador, was dead in her husband's place, and from her lips flew nervous, giddy laughter at the stroke of luck that saved Chuck from certain death.

Then it was as if one of the French guards stopped beside her. Even then, when it was only the dusty, muddied boots she saw, she knew. She reached out a hand and grasped his leg, buried her fingers into his skin. It was he, cloaked and hidden, but he had braved the safe distance they had established so he could be beside her. Eleanor looked up when the dark figure loomed over them. Chuck knelt beside Blair and held her hair away from her face, then waited until she had heaved all that she would. He took the cloak from her hands and handed it back to the woman to return to its sack.

She turned to him, away from her mother, and clung to his arms. She listened to his heartbeat with her ear upon his chest, allowing him to wiped at the tears on her cheeks with leather gloves. He wiped her mouth with his sleeve.

She looked at her mother, and saw the curious regard that Eleanor gave them. Blair said, "I shall put my faith in you, mother, that you shall keep my husband safe."

"Darling," Eleanor said sympathetically, "you are confused." She sighed. "Lord Warwick, your husband, is now dead at sea. Philip has written to me of a list of candidates he considers worthy of your hand."

"He cannot use me to further his kingdom," Blair insisted. "This I told him, and to this I stand."

"Carter, did you not tell her? I had told you to inform my daughter of what she should expect."

"My lady," Chuck said finally. "I would be greatly opposed to any match to my wife."

It brushed her consciousness then that Eleanor would believe that the man in her party, who wore Carter's cape, was Carter himself. Eleanor's gaze slammed to Chuck in her utter shock. "Pardonez moi!"

Chuck reached up and threw back the hood of the black cape. "Lady Rose," Chuck said. Eleanor's eyes grew larger. "I—"

Eleanor's hand shot up to cover Chuck's mouth. She looked up and around them and looked at the faces of every one of the people present. She then shook her head. Eleanor struggled to her feet. "Stand up," she instructed. Chuck did, then helped Blair up. Eleanor dismissed the ladies and the guards. "I expect each and every one of you to keep silent about what you may or may not seen or heard." Then, she said to Chuck and Blair, "Follow me."

They climbed the steps and followed close behind Lady Rose. The hallway seemed endless as they walked. Moments later they stopped beside a wall that bore the portrait of a balding man wearing spectacles. Eleanor's hand ran down the side of the portrait, and then the wall swung open. She slipped inside and directed the two to follow.

"Chuck Bass," she said finally, in recognition.

Chuck gave a curt nod. He took Blair's hand, then said, "Your daughter's husband."

"You are not dead," Eleanor repeated.

"Thank God!" Blair exclaimed.

Eleanor shook her head. "It is impossible. I am aware of how Philip works. If he decided you would be murdered on the ship, you would be murdered. The fur tells a story."

"I would be murdered if I were aboard," Chuck acknowledged. "I was not. Carter Baizen took my place."

At the revelation, Eleanor clapped her hands on her mouth. Blair saw the despair in her mother's eyes and realized Carter's worth. The most important assignment had been granted to him, and told her that Carter had been at the very least her mother's favorite. "I am sorry for your loss, mother," she said. "But I cannot lie. My heart is soaring," Blair confessed.

Eleanor heaved a tremulous breath. She decided, "Your husband is saved. You have every right to your joy."

Chuck's arm wrapped around Blair's shoulders and he drew her to him. He kissed her ear, and whispered, "We will light a candle for him."

Eleanor said, "He is alive. Carter is resourceful. He would not survive years in my service if an assassin can take him."

"The blood—"

Eleanor smiled grimly, and Blair wondered if it was false hope or genuine belief. "It could very well be his attacker's blood. No. Carter is alive. The man has more lives than the royal cat." And then she nodded towards the two. "Rest yourselves. In my home, you have sanctuary."

"Mother—"

Eleanor stepped forward and touched the hair that had fallen over her face. She tucked them behind her ear, then nodded towards Chuck. "My heart is broken that I was not with you as you grew to become this young lady, darling. But if he is choice, then I shall be behind you."

"You will accept him, mother, even when every other soul in this family shall not?"

"What do you think happened when I grew infatuated with your father, darling, and left the French court for a single-minded Protestant servant of Elizabeth?" Eleanor gave her a grim smile. "I had forsaken my entire family to live humbly in England with Harold."

"And you abandoned us," Blair said bitterly, because Eleanor's acceptance, though wonderful to hear, was not the end.

"I could not be what he needed for you," she said. "He wanted me simple, motherly. He wanted to save the family by asking me to forfeit my faith. That I could not do. I would not have left if he did not seek to change me." To Chuck, she said, "I hope, for your sake, Lord Warwick, that you can accept my daughter for everything she is. In the end, you cannot ask for her change to suit your needs."

"I would not dare ask Blair to change."

"If you do," Eleanor warned, "she will abandon you."

And even though Chuck nodded in acknowledgment of the statement, Blair contested, "I beg pardon, mother. Chuck is not my father. He delights in who I am. He is exasperated at times, but he loves me." She felt the deep breath he took against her hair. "And I—I am not you. I would never abandon the man I love."

"You do not understand," said Eleanor. "Lives were at stake. People were burned for their beliefs. If I stayed I needed to be someone else, and I could not live life in a lie."

"No, mother. Chuck and I have braved enough challenges to know there is always a way." Blair paused, and she felt Chuck's hand wrap around hers in silent support. He did not speak, did not interrupt. "We are not the same. You abandoned us too quickly, too easily. That I would never do."

~o~o~o~

The first time he sank inside her in a bed that was not rented, it still was a stranger's bed. The chambers were her own, prepared by a mother who long waited for her arrival. It should have felt more like home, but for the oddest reason it felt less welcoming than most.

He held her firmly by her hips as he laid back, and she rested her hands on his chest as she raised herself over him and then pushed back down. He gritted his teeth and his length plunged up inside of her and he felt her muscles surrounding him contract. Tonight, she needed to set the pace, needed to move over him.

And so he followed her rhythm and watched in fascination as his faerie creature, moved on top of him, her hair in wild abandon over her shoulders, her lips slightly parted as she breathed. He pumped up to meet her hips.

"I shall not leave you," she swore.

"I know," he grunted. His hands reached up to massage the breasts that moved with their fierce and measured movements. His thumbs worked her nipples and she moaned.

"I am not she. And you would never change me."

"Never."

His whispered vow hung in the air when she reached her peak, and she melted into his body while her fluids drenched him. He sat up, then turned her onto her back so he could take the top. Chuck's arms hooked underneath her knees and she cried out at the deeper penetration. She was so slick with her come, and he easily slid in and out of her body. Blair grasped at the headboard and cried out every time he entered, every time she felt his sac against the wet spot of her lower mouth.

Tonight, of all the nights, she was sensitive, and it was painful and pleasurable at once. He placed a warm palm on her belly and she saw explosive sparks. She came again, quickly, unexpectedly, and when she slowly recovered she felt him shooting inside of her in spurts. His mouth covered hers.

She gasped for breath, and murmured her love when he drew close and rested his body against her slick, sweaty back.

"I want to marry you," he said to her, his lips sliding on the perspiration upon the crook of her neck. She reached behind her and buried her fingers into his hair. "I want a wedding here in France. I want a wedding in every kingdom. I want a wedding that no one can deny."

"We are wed," she said firmly. "Whatever Philip chooses to believe, we are wed, my lord. I shall stand by its truth."

"The queen can choose not to honor the wedding at the Tower," he said. There were no witnesses, and he had not asked her leave. "No one else witnessed that wedding but you and I."

"It is enough. It was sacred to me," she told him.

"I would wed you," he told her, "again and again until there will be no chance that anyone can take the lands from you."

She frowned, then turned around in his arms so she could face him. She raised herself up by her elbow. "Why would anyone take them?" she asked. "You are my husband. What is in your mind, my lord?"

He reached to cup her cheek, and she turned her face so she could kiss his palm. "If Carter was killed before he arrived in England," he told her, "and we have no knowledge of Serena's fate, then the message about the duke of Parma's plan of attack did not reach London." She closed her eyes when she understood. "I must deliver the news, Blair."

"No," she said, knowing that it was her heart and her mind warring once more.

"You and I both know that your heart lies with England. You shall not allow this attack to catch the kingdom unaware."

She nodded. "Then I shall come with you to deliver the news. It is my assignment." And then, softly, she said, "I cannot be apart from you."

"You are safer here," he told her. "France will be safe once the war between Spain and England begins."

"There is nowhere safer than with you, my lord," she said.

Chuck nodded. He kissed her lips. "I would die before you are hurt," he told her. "But the weeks of travel across the Channel—"

"I have done it before and I shall do it again. This time, I shall have you!"

Chuck sighed. "Blair, this journey will be harder on you." She shook her head in her confusion. "My love, the journey will be harsh when you have a child in your belly."

She blinked. "A child in my belly. Now?" He nodded. "Surely, my lord, I would know."

He smiled at her, and kissed her forehead. He sat up on the bed as well. "It has been two moons since Spain. Most every night we have been together."

She had not had menses, she realized. Every night they joined and she had not thought of the change. He placed a hand on the small of her back, and Blair took a robe and covered herself. She followed as he led her towards the full length mirror that adorned the small wardrobe in the chambers. She hesitated before stepping before her reflection. He stood behind her. She watched in awe as his hands moved to the ribbon at her waist. He pulled the ends and watched it unravel. The robe fell into a puddle at her feet. Blair flushed when she regarded her naked body in full.

She closed her eyes.

He kissed her earlobe, then said, "Keep your eyes open. You are stunning."

She felt younger of a sudden, like the ambitious virgin she had been when she first asked him to tutor her in the art of seduction. Once again, he was the master and she was the student. Even of her body, he would be the teacher.

His hand came from behind and she watched as his fingers brushed on her arm. His hand cupped the underside of her breast, and she gasped as the thrill. He weighed her breasts in his hands and said, "These breasts I love, perfect in my hands," reminding her of the time in Elizabeth's court when she asked him what was best on her body. "The change is slight. It is far too early, but they weigh more heavily, they are fuller." Blair's lips parted when she watched his thumbs in the mirror as he traced her areolas. "They blush a little darker now," he said.

He was straining behind her, against her bottom. Then, "Remember these hips that I adore—they fascinate me. They flare ever so slightly, and you become more of a woman every day." She licked her lips. She noticed no change in them, but his keen eye did and his palms brushed over the skin.

And then, both his hands drew to cradle her flat abdomen. Her hands trembled as she hovered over it, and he clasped their fingers together and placed their hands on her belly. "Most of all, this. A child sleeps in here, my child." She wondered if it was her imagination that she felt the butterfly fluttering inside of her. It was too early for movement, but it felt like such simple greeting.

Finally, "You shall not take the ship to England, my love. Not when you are waxing with the Bass heir in your belly."

"I am with child," she whispered in realization.

And how it was that he—her teacher, her tutor, her lord and husband—should know of it before she did.

"I know your body, every inch of it, every bit of your skin, every gland, every strand of your hair. I bury myself inside you every night. I know your body."

She met her husband's eyes in the reflection. "I shall not be abandoned, Chuck. Not by you. I shall leave with you. I am not a wilting miss. My place is beside you, not waiting in a comfort of a home until you return. I am done with goodbyes."

Reluctantly, he nodded. "You are stubborn," he said.

"And yet you love me still."

"Always," he replied easily. "Then it is upon my shoulders how I can keep you safe on the trip home."

"It is not upon your shoulders. I am resilient," she assured him. "And I cannot wait to see the queen's face once she knows the part I played in saving England."

tbc

AN: Don't forget to let me know your thoughts. Thanks for reading.


	23. Part 22

**Part 22**

For so long she had been merely a speck in the grandeur of Elizabeth's court. She, Blair Waldorf, had been nothing important. In London she could have vanished, and no one would have known. She had been thrown into the Tower for a crime she did not commit, would never have thought to do in her love for the queen, and her own mother knew nothing. In her bed, wrapped in the arms of the love of her life, she assessed the luxurious chambers that her mother had provided.

She felt his breath, his warm lips against the shell of her ear. "What worries you?"

Her lips curved, for whatever reason he should ask it when she had said nothing. She need not ask how. He had proven enough in so many words that night how it was that he would know her wordless thoughts, her very reason for being. Her fingers tangled with his as they cupped together where they both now knew their child slept.

"I worry not," she told him, "but my thoughts turn home." Because England—that was always going to be home.

His lips moved warmly and tenderly to brush on her bare shoulder. She so adored when he did it, and she felt the affection he gave so discreetly. She turned her head so she could purse her lips towards him, and he responded with a prompt kiss. "What of home?"

"The queen of France has searched for me with my mother," she said. "My blood runs with the same as that which runs through the royal families of Spain and France."

"From the first night I found you I knew you were a queen in your own right," he said softly.

"I remember how it is that in England I mattered not."

His hand tightened around hers. "You mattered to me," he told her. At her nod, he continued, "You mattered to my father. Did you know," he asked, "that he thought to bequeath Northumberland to you?"

At the memory of Bartholomew bribe for her to remain and forget her dreams of the court, she chuckled breathily. "And if I had agreed, I would have left you a pauper."

It was greatly exaggerated, of course. After all, he had his trade and his post with the queen. He had been a made man in Elizabeth's court. And from the whispers in the ladies' circle she knew how vast the expanse of Warwick had been. Even so, he would have been mightily furious, she thought, to hear that his father's ward had taken his inheritance. She wondered how he would have taken back the lands from her. Because truly, the Chuck Bass she met in court would never have allowed holdings such as Northumbria to pass on to an unknown.

"You would have abhorred me," she stated, "cursed my very name."

"True," he confessed honestly, "until I met you. Because then, Blair, you would have had my heart just as easily as I had fallen in love with you this time."

She turned in his arms, so she would face him as they lay abed. "Would you have, Chuck?" she asked in curiosity. "Even if you had met me in that light, under which I had stolen your possessions from you? You would have called me a liar, a cheater, a traitorous, land-grubbing—"

He silenced her with a kiss, and her hand rose to cup his cheek. She smiled when their mouths parted. He said, with a certainty that she had only ever seen in him since Spain, "I would have loved you."

And truly, she knew she was blessed.

In the morning, it was the reckoning. With the morning came the moment that Blair needed to face the mother who had been lost to her for years of her life, and inform the woman that she would leave. She scoured the various chambers and the hallway to find Lady Eleanor and wandered into a dark, cool chapel.

On that fateful night when she had last seen together her mother and her father, Blair remembered a cross, candles, a Holy Bible that hit the floor and spilled pearl rosary beads. She picked up the skirt of gown, knowing that there was a good chance she would find Eleanor in solemn prayer of thanksgiving. After all, her daughter had returned to her. Princess Isabella had attributed the discovery to God, and no doubt Eleanor had done the same. She entered the indoor chapel and as her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, she saw the young woman sitting up front.

"Have you seen my mother?" she said softly, and her voice echoed in the enclosed space.

The blonde head rose, and Blair saw that the girl had not been bent in prayer. Instead, she was poring over a tome on her lap. Lady Eleanor had taught the girl to read, and it was not surprising the Jenny would be in the chapel. It was a haven in the household. "Not today," Jenny answered, her voice cool and detached. She glanced down at the book, having noticed Blair's stare. "Before your mother took me in, I had never touched books as beautiful." Blair noted the illustrations on the page as the various fauna in the area. "Once when I was younger I served a master who had wonderful collections as these," she told Blair. "I was nine, and I was put to work in the bedchambers. That is where I found the first book. By the time I turned eleven I had been sent to the kitchens."

Involuntarily Blair's hand flew to her flat abdomen. Her child would not be put to work so early. No one was allowed to steal her babe's childhood, nor deny it whatever it desired. "My mother allowed you to touch the books," she said.

"I was her daughter," Jenny insisted. "Before your return, she treated me as a daughter."

And in her, Blair saw a living, breathing symbol of a motherless child. Neither she nor Chuck would allow Jenny's fate to befall their babe. When Eleanor abandoned her, she had her dear Dorota become as close to her as a mother. And when Harold perished, the queen had given her wardship to Lord Bartholomew. Jenny's claims were true. Blair and Jenny were different as night and day, as the hue of their hair.

"You and I shall never be friends, shall we?" Blair asked.

"You have everything, and you are selfish. You will not give me anything—not even a piece of it," Jenny answered.

"But Jenny, what you want are my husband, my mother."

"I want part of your life," Jenny said. "I deserve a piece of happiness. You cannot have it all. Is there nothing you can live without, Lady Blair?"

Jenny stood, and Blair moistened her lips at the pain and the passion in the young woman's eyes. "My mother is my own. But she will allow you to live here, be one of her ladies." When Jenny turned to look away, Blair lowered her voice. She remembered her imprisonment, the kindly older man who was in Beauchamp with her. And she recalled the lessons he gave her on happiness, on peace within oneself, of acceptance. "Jenny, you must understand—you were never her daughter."

Blair stepped forward. She reached for Jenny's hand, and brought it up to her chest. "Please. You shall not live a contented life unless you accept who you are." She was a child, this young woman. Despite the little difference in their age, Jenny was so much younger for having been left to her devices so early. It aged a person, yet one's heart did not grow. "Once I was dissatisfied, just like you. I had never seen value in myself and I blindly sought it in the only ambition I could grasp."

"Do you hear how selfish you are?" Jenny said softly, her way of protest. "You have everything and yet still you need more."

Blair took a deep breath, prayed for patience because she needed patience to become a mother. She was only grateful her child would never be as hurt and angry as Jenny Humphrey was. "That was how I used to be," Blair said. "Now I am not. I have never been happier than when I accepted my place in the world, Jenny. When I refused Chuck, I was miserable. When I could not forgive my mother, I was an orphan. Now I am my lord's partner, and I have made my peace with my mother. I am happy, and I am prepared to have a child of my own."

Before her, Jenny's eyes widened. The hand that Blair held stiffened. "You are with child?" Jenny whispered.

Blair nodded. "I am. A miracle. My miracle with Chuck."

In a raspy voice, Jenny said, "You truly are the most fortunate of all, are you not?"

"I am."

Jenny's quiet gaze shifted from her face to a point over her shoulder. Even before she turned she knew who approached. Blair waited with bated breath until her husband stopped behind her and placed a hand on the small of her back. Jenny said, with her jaw clenched, "You shall leave your mother soon."

Blair nodded, surprised that the girl knew. Then again, Eleanor had chosen her to be a spy, so there must be talents in Jenny that Blair had yet to see.

Jenny took the book from the seat and hurried away, keeping her head down and not meeting Chuck's eyes. Blair sighed, then turned to face her husband.

"I would that you remain far away from the girl," Chuck told her.

Blair frowned. "I wished her dead, Chuck, when she betrayed you to the Spaniards."

"Now?"

"She was motherless," Blair said, "fatherless. She had a wretched life."

"A wretched life does not forgive what she has done," Chuck said. She wondered how it was that now their roles reversed. "She is truly sorry for what she had done to me, but I would that you keep away from her."

Blair rested a hand on her husband's chest, felt the rapid pounding of his heart. It was odd, this fear. Even when his life was in peril, she did not feel this terror in his chest. "My lord?" He closed his eyes, shrugged his shoulders in an effort to dismiss what was in his mind. "No. Tell me."

He sighed, then grasped her wrist and removed her hand from his chest. He brought it up to his lips. "I saw the way she regarded you."

"In a dimly lit chapel?"

"I fear nothing in the world but losing you," he admitted. "And when I saw that look, Blair, I feared Jenny Humphrey."

It would have been a ridiculous notion—her strong, noble husband afraid of a slip of a girl. But the thunderous rhythm of his heart was real. She pitied Jenny Humphrey, but Chuck was ever her teacher and if only for that she could dismiss nothing of what he felt. And so she stepped closer to him, then wrapped her arms around his waist. "Fear not, my lord. Soon we shall be gone from here, far away from Jenny Humphrey."

It was past noon when Lady Eleanor arrived. At once Blair sat with her mother in the whitewashed balcony just outside of Eleanor's chambers. Blair listened as Eleanor told her of the trip to Queen Catarina's home.

"She will want to see you, darling," Eleanor told her daughter. "But she and the prince are on a summer tour of the kingdom, and shall not return for months." And then, decidedly, Eleanor announced, "I shall write to her. Within weeks she will return to see you."

Eleanor reached for the small silver bell atop the glass table before them. Blair caught her mother's wrist. "There is no need, mother."

"I am certain the queen shall make arrangements to postpone her travels if she knew you were here."

"There is no time," Blair said. "I cannot wait weeks."

Eleanor placed her teacup down the table. "What are you saying, Blair?"

The door opened and Blair turned and saw Jenny Humphrey with a pot. Blair moistened her lips and waited for Jenny to replace the empty pot with what she had brought. "Thank you," she murmured.

Jenny nodded, then smiled briefly. Eleanor frowned at her. Blair reached for her mother's hand and shook her head. Jenny flushed, then said, "I want to apologize, Lady Eleanor, Lady Blair, for my outburst the day before."

"I am not pleased with what you did, Jenny," Eleanor stated.

"I know, my lady. I regret my actions so much."

"What did you hope to accomplish?" Eleanor demanded. "Did you truly believe I would disown my daughter for having married one of Elizabeth's nobles?" At that, Jenny lowered her head. Eleanor scoffed. "If that were the case I should have myself arrested!"

Blair noticed the flush in Jenny's cheeks, and took pity on the girl. And so lightly, she said, "To be fair, mother, father was never in the stature of Chuck Bass."

Eleanor glanced at her daughter, distracted from her scolding Jenny. She chuckled and waved Jenny away, then took the pot and refilled their cups. Eleanor brought the cup up and tasted the brew. "Peppermint?" she said, then shuddered. "Even the flavor of the steep she did not choose right."

Blair sipped her brew and found the flavor strong. "You were too harsh, mother." She blew lightly because the liquid was hot, then brought up the liquid to her lips again and sipped.

"How did Bartholomew raise you, I will never know. It is not in our blood to be so forgiving."

It was the perfect opening, and would allow her to tell Eleanor what she needed. "The Basses are hard to forgive as well, mother," Blair said, then realized she was one of the Basses now. "It is not Bartholomew, or blood. Jenny Humphrey was not a child well cared for."

"And when I left, neither were you," Eleanor said regretfully. "But you did not turn out as spiteful as she."

"You underestimate, mother, my Dorota."

At the mention of the name, Eleanor's face softened. "She raised you well?"

Blair nodded. "She cared well for me. And despite what you and father had, Harold Waldorf remained a good man until he died." Blair reached for her mother's hand. "I had Dorota, and my father. And I had the keep and the servants. Jenny had none of that, mother."

Eleanor's eyes filled with tears. "You were an only child. You were lonely most of the time," she said, remembering the little princess she used to know.

"I need to understand, and I hurt for her, mother. But I will make myself understand what Jenny lacked. I should know all this. I shall be a mother soon," Blair admitted.

Eleanor's cup clattered to the glass table. Her hand slapped over her mouth.

"You are with child?"

Blair nodded with a tearful smile. "And I cannot be happier, mother." She choked on her own words and took another sip of the brew.

"A babe begetting a babe," Eleanor whispered. And then she shook her head. "I forget how any years it has been since I left. You are not a babe anymore. You have a husband now and a family soon after."

"Chuck and I shall return to England, mother," she told Eleanor. "We shall raise our babe in the lands that he will inherit. But we shall welcome you with open arms in Warwick or in Northumbria."

Eleanor answered, "I am not welcome in England, darling."

"I can make you welcome," Blair assured her mother. Surely the queen would grant her the moon and the stars once she found that Blair had saved England from the Armada. "I can make anything happen," she vowed. "Wait for my letter, and you can come back home."

Eleanor shook her head in wonder. "You have turned into a remarkable young woman, darling."

"Come home, mother. I may need your words as my child grows." Blair gave her a fond smile. "Would you truly allow my child to grow up with only Bartholomew Bass as a grandparent?"

"The child will never smile," Eleanor said lightly. She laughed and wiped the tears from her eyes. She stood from her seat and extended her arms for an embrace. Blair pushed her seat back and rose to receive the embrace, then stumbled at her feet when the world spun. "Darling?"

She bent over the balcony and heaved. When she looked back at her mother, she saw only a haze in her vision. Blair felt a violent cramp in her stomach. She felt herself pitch forward, but grabbed the cement railing behind her instead. She plastered her back against the wall, and when the pain ripped inside of her she cried out, but let herself slowly slide down. She breathed harshly from her mouth, and blinked but she could see nothing but shadows.

How long it was, she could not know. But someone grasped her hand and she blindly tightened her grip because she knew it was Chuck. Her other hand frantically drew her gown up and she felt the inside of her thigh.

"Is there blood?" she gasped.

Chuck breathed harshly, and he took her hand and she heard the sob of relief. "Very little," he told her.

She cried out again at the cramp. She felt him lift her into his arms. Blair rested her cheek on her husband's shoulder. She heard the scuffle, but she was too exhausted, too much in pain to be curious.

Jenny Humphrey demanded to be freed. Blair peered over Chuck's shoulder as he strode through the corridor towards the chambers they shared. She saw Jenny forced to her knees in front of her mother. And then, slowly, Eleanor—Lady Rose—reached down and grasped the golden hair and pulled back Jenny's head.

"The dried pennyroyal leaves were in your chambers, Jenny," she heard Lady Rose say—because that voice, that tone, that pitch was not her mother.

"Pennyroyal?" she whispered throatily into her husband's ear. That was the smell of peppermint in the brew. "Jenny wanted to kill my child," she said in realization.

"I want her dead," Chuck threw back over his shoulder, then continued towards their chambers.

He laid her down on the bed and removed her clothing. His words were measured, and as her eyesight cleared she saw the quiet look of determination on his face. She reached a hand to his cheek, and knew her hand was deathly cold when his skin burned hers. He took her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm.

"If you had taken more," he said softly. "If there was not that pain and you had taken it for longer—"

The door opened and Eleanor's and the queen's physician walked inside. Chuck sat beside her on the bed and leaned over her. He buried his face in the crook of her neck. Blair belatedly realized why when she felt the wetness on her skin.

"Never ask me to forgive her," he said softly.

"They will kill her," she said. Lady Rose had appeared in that corridor, and she knew without a doubt now how it was that her gentle aristocratic mother could be a spymaster worthy of Walsingham himself. "You told them to kill her."

"Your mother would have done the same."

"She had no mother, Chuck," she said softly.

"No," he said firmly, cutting her off. He repeated, "No."

Blair closed her eyes, fighting off the nausea and the dizziness. The doctor examined her, then grunted. Chuck rose from the bed and Blair turned to her side. She drowned out the screams and the pleas that were faint for the distance yet loud in her conscience. She did not hear Chuck and the physician as they conversed.

Next she felt herself raised up and she leaned back against her husband's chest. He held the glass to her lips and she opened her mouth and drank the liquid he poured down her throat. She sniffled quietly as Jenny's voice grew fainter. His lips brushed against the shell of her ear.

"You shall recover quickly," he told her.

Her hand rested over her womb. "The blood—"

"The child will be fine," he assured her. "You consumed very little. It was potent, but you took a small amount. It was not enough to abort the child." She took a deep breath and sobbed. "But that small amount wreaked havoc within you." He wrapped his arms tightly around her. "You cannot travel, my love," he said softly.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "I can and I will. Beside you or not, I shall sail to England and I shall face the queen, Chuck. Tell me, my lord—with you or without?"

"You are yet to heal."

"With you or without," she repeated.

Reluctantly, he said, "With me."

tbc


	24. Part 23

**AN: **Reading the reviews from the last part left me chuckling and thinking you're a bloodthirsty lot. Thank you for reading.

**Part 23**

Heavy folds of an amethyst gown, given to her by her mother, hid the the gentle swell of her belly. She felt her husband's regard and looked up at him with a reassuring smile. His hand joined hers over where their child slept. The worry in his eyes was everpresent now, so she cupped his cheek with her hand and kissed his brow.

"I cannot thank you enough, my lord, to encompass the gratitude inside of me."

"Thank me," he repeated in surprise. "For what?"

Her fingers tightened around his. "That you did not leave," she said. After she had imbibed the pennyroyal tea, she had remained abed for days to heal. Despite his silence and his presence in her chambers she knew at night he fretted at the impending arrival rendezvous of the duke of Parma and the Armada. After all, he was still a member of the privy council, as essential to the kingdom's welfare as Cecil or Walsingham themselves. He needed to tell his queen about the attack and warn England to take up arms. And every night that she healed, she waited for him to tell her that he could not wait, that he needed to leave, to promise her that he would soon return for her. In truth it weighed in her conscience so much that she knew once he asked another time she would reluctantly agree. "A million times, my lord, I knew you wished to say you had to come home."

He shook his head, then raised her fingers to his lips. His lips brushed the tips of her fingers. "A million times I wished to tell you that the queen must be told," he corrected her. "But my home is beside you."

"You did not leave me."

"I could not."

And so for their selfish decision—hers that he wait until she could sail with him, his that he remain beside her—England had very little time to prepare for the Armada. But the queen had known for months that they would come, and had done preparations on her own. The news they would bring, of Parma and Medina-Sedonia's strategy, would be the only news that would catch Elizabeth unaware.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder as they neared Elizabeth's court, and she felt him slowly breathe out into her hair. "When we are in court, remember us," he said softly.

"How could I forget?" she said. Across the Channel, when she had fallen ill and fevered of exhaustion borne of travelling too soon after the bleeding, and the dampness of the journey, it had been Chuck who held the blankets to her body and held her to him when she needed to expel the fluids from her body. "These past weeks, Chuck, you carried me."

"I love you," he reminded her gently, as if it explained how it was that she had survived a crossing that she should not have attempted at all.

"No one in court valued me as much as you, my lord."

Had she spent time elsewhere than within his arms, or given more thought to those around her than to her single-minded designs to be the queen's lady, she could possibly have claims to more than Chuck Bass. Thinking back, she had no wish for more than this. In his arms, Chuck Bass was the world and a half.

There was no possible way she could forget that he was her life now—the earl and the child he had given her.

And finally, they faced Elizabeth. The sight of the queen, resplendent in white as she stood upon her pedestal, determined and courageous unlike any other woman she had ever seen, caused the hair on her arms to rise. Blair's stride grew quicker as she approached the queen. Chuck's hand fell from the small of her back as she made her way to the queen.

She heard the argument from a distance, learned that Cecil disagreed with the queen's plans. "There is no need for you, your majesty, to make the long journey to Tilbury for the troops."

"I am queen," Elizabeth said in determination. Blair's heart swelled once more with admiration. "A queen will not sit trembling within a guarded Palace while my people battle."

Even from afar she remembered, the deeper she was into the hall, what it was that she desired the most in court—and the privilege of being by her queen.

Elizabeth continued, to the earl of Essex. "My steed, Robert. I will live or die with my soldiers."

Essex saw her approach, and Blair gave her friend a small curve of her lips. Dear Robert Deveraux, as handsome as he had been since last she saw him, seemed ever unchanging as he stood with the queen. And yet, when he turned his gaze to her, lair saw a glimpse of the hunger in his eyes. Ambition, he had shared with her once, is in us all. And Blair could see the creature inside of him struggling to hide.

"Then I shall ride by you, majesty," Essex offered.

To Blair's surprise, the queen was cool at the generous declaration. Sensing where it was that Essex looked, Elizabeth turned to her. Blair caught her breath as Elizabeth's sight rested on her. She stopped in her tracks, and Chuck reached her side and placed a hand on the small of her back.

"So, countess, you have returned," the queen said, and she heard Chuck exhale when the title was used. In this at the very least there was no need to fight. The queen of England honored the hasty wedding, and for the little triumph Blair was grateful.

Walsingham stepped forward, revealing Serena's figure. The spy had reached England, and Blair moistened her lips to contain herself from asking about her mother's Carter.

"Francis has informed me of your role in this vital war," she said. The queen walked forward, and Blair's eyes widened at the queen's approach. She needed to make her way to Elizabeth. No one should wait for the queen to come to her, and yet her feet suddenly were glued to the floor. On the queen's face was such delight in her she had only once dreamed of, and Blair instead lowered herself into a curtsy to show her respect. "We are pleased with your love," Elizabeth said.

Blair's eyes were on the floor, as overwhelmed as she was with the affection. She felt the queen's fingertips on her chin, and Blair looked up and drowned in her Tudor queen's gratitude. From her lips spilled unbidden, words from the life she had before, "I live only to please you, your majesty."

Elizabeth nodded, satisfied with the proclamation. "Then rise." With her husband's assistance, Blair straightened and took deep, calming breaths. "You deserve to be at my right hand," Elizabeth said, "for this journey."

Blair felt as Chuck's hand fisted on her back, a silent protest.

"Majesty, my wife is ill and exhausted from our crossing," Chuck said softy.

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed, but she inclined her head. "If your husband so declares," Elizabeth allowed.

Chuck slowly released a sigh of relief. Elizabeth walked past Essex until she reached another man, one Blair had not before met. The man kissed Elizabeth's hand, then grasped Essex's arm as he turned to leave the hall.

"My husband declares naught," Blair said quickly.

The queen nodded, then requested for a horse for Blair.

Blair turned quickly to Chuck, whose brows furrowed in displeasure. She cupped his cheek, then said, "I am well. You have cared for me so I would be well."

"A ride to Tilbury—"

"To be by the queen's side," Blair finished for him, "is a privilege so rare, my lord."

His jaw locked, and she saw the tick and covered it with one hand. He covered her hand with his and dragged it away. "You swore you would not forget us."

"And I shall not," she promised.

~o~o~o~o~

The court would swallow her, he thought, until there was nothing left of his wife. The court would swallow her and spit out the same insecure young woman she had been when she first arrived and thought her worth lay with a place in the queen's circle. Blair alit from the litter he had argued she use rather than ride upon a saddle. His wife's face shone like lit from within. She was by Elizabeth's side in what would undoubtedly be the highest or the lowest period of the monarch's reign.

Elizabeth, on her destrier, wearing a silver breastplate over her white gown, rode through the camp like a majestic saint. Blair held a hand over her heart, which Chuck knew leapt at the sight of the queen. He walked towards where Blair watched in awe. He took his place behind her, and when he placed a hand on her hip she looked up at him.

"The child is well," she said softly.

And he relished the few, short words that assured him that she had not yet forgotten. He could not figure this Blair in his arms. She had the unquenchable thirst still for the queen's acceptance, and placed herself in such ill-advised situation such as Tilbury at the approach of the Armada, yet as he held her, as he looked into her eyes, she seemed the same Blair he had met in Spain, the one that had placed his welfare above all else.

So he nodded in acknowledgment and kissed her temple.

The queen, glowing under the hot sun, delivered the words that shook England to its core. "Some of my councilors," she said to the army, "cautioned us against appearing before you. Numerous times I there have been attempts on my life, and here I stand before an armed crowd." There was a pregnant pause before she continued, "But that means I am distrustful of my faithful and loving people of England. And that I shall never be."

Chuck wondered when it was that he had become a cynic of his queen's words. His father's feelings of the monarchy suddenly teased his mind, and he wondered if it was the natural progression of the Basses. Now that he had his family, blinders had been removed.

Elizabeth had declared faith in her loving people, yet she had locked up a defenseless woman in the Tower for the incident at the hunt. Without any true witness but Serena, no motive, no weapon in Blair's person, the queen had been so willing to incarcerate Blair for what was so obviously a jealousy of Essex.

Essex, he thought, who was as soon forgotten as Essex's stepfather, the earl of Leicester Robert Dudley returned briefly into her life.

"I am not afraid of you. I love you," the queen declared to a cheering crowd. "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman," Elizabeth said, "but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too."

The cheers, the shouts, were contagious. In his arms his wife stirred and she looked up at him with tear-filled eyes. "Watching this, seeing this, my lord, is there any wonder why I adore her?"

It was, as Eleanor had warned, one unchangeable thing in her. As he sank into his cynical frame of mind, Blair latched tightly to the queen. His role then, he knew, taking it on before deciding through, was to protect her from what would undoubtedly prove to be many disappointments with the queen. When at times, he would be frustrated at her utter stubbornness to see through Elizabeth's magniloquence, he would hold her when the inevitable crashed down.

In the end, it was a navy battle that killed few. There was no bloodshed on land, and the grand Armada sank in a water skirmish that required many of the skills that she had found Medina-Sedonia to lack. Before rejoining her people Elizabeth embraced Blair.

"Pray," the queen said to her. "Give thanks."

Blair released a trembling breath as Elizabeth left. Chuck saw Walsingham's regard towards his wife. The spymaster walked towards where the queen left Blair. He felt the hand on his arm and saw Serena van der Woodsen, attired more simply now that she was no longer pretending to be an heiress under Walsingham's wardship.

"My lord—"

"Serena," he answered in greeting. "I see you have returned to Walsingham's fold. What of your escape plan?" He remembered the cloak that Isabella and Philip had sent to Eleanor. "Is he perished?" he said, knowing that whatever had happened it was so that he could have the months he had spent with his wife.

"If he were," Serena said, her eyes flickering around to ensure that no one could hear, "if he were not, would not come from my lips." With a humble smile she said, "I have learned my lesson of spilling untruths."

For that answer alone, Chuck chose to believe the other man did not die on the journey after trading placed with him.

"I will be gone, my lord, after I tell you this," she said. "I am only come to fulfill your wife's assignment, and close this book on the Armada."

"Tell me."

"Walsingham is so impressed with your wife, and how she gleaned all this information I have shared with him regarding Medina-Sedonia, that he shall campaign for the queen to petition for her service."

The idea was ridiculous to him, but knowing Walsingham he could not put it past the old man. Once Walsingham learned of Blair's heritage—and who was to say he still had not—even more Blair would become a powerful tool for his espionage. Nowhere else would the spymaster find a titled countess of England who would have free access to Vienna, to Italy, to Spain and to France. Nowhere else would he find anyone who could speak with the queens and kings with such freedom than his wife.

And despite this new affection for Blair, the queen was still a ruler with a responsibility to England first. So easily Walsingham could get the agreement.

Chuck strode towards the spymaster, cutting him off on his way to Blair. Walsingham appeared surprised to see him. When Chuck turned back from where he came, there was no longer any sign of Serena. She had completely vanished, in fact, that he wondered if the woman had not been a phantom, and had died with Baizen on the journey home.

"Warwick, what pleasure to see your return." He smirked. "You were half-addled when the queen ordered you exiled." Chuck barely remembered those times now. "Your father was your only saving grace."

He ignored the comments, because there was one reason he appeared before the senior member of the council now. "You look at my wife like you look at a lamb to the slaughter," Chuck muttered. He held a hand to Walsingham's chest. "No more, Walsingham."

The man did not deny what Chuck so readily implied. "All English subjects are to be used as needed," he reminded Chuck.

"She very nearly perished in Spain," Chuck said. "Blair is no spy."

"The success of the mission makes your statement a lie."

"Success?" Chuck spat out. "The only reason she is not dead or ruined is I had made my own way to her, and she had another guardian watching over her," he stated, even in his anger careful not to refer

"I know about Baizen. Do you truly think that in any other mission she would not have the same good fortune?"

Chuck fisted a hand , but Essex grabbed his arm. Walsingham nodded his farewell. When Chuck lunged forward, Essex pulled him back. "Give them no reason to throw you behind bars. Give them no reason to suspect you of placing England below even your wife," Essex advised. "I will speak to the queen about Blair."

"You are no help," Chuck bit out. "If you speak for her, the queen will regard my wife bitterly once more."

"Then let us speak with Cecil," Essex told him.

The old man at least Chuck trusted fully with his life. William Cecil had been his father's friend for the longest time, and had worked with Bartholomew when the duke had reluctantly returned to court in an effort to save Blair.

"Take her home," was Cecil's advise. "Take her home to Warwick or to Northumbria."

The idea was simple enough. Blair had a passionate love for the moors of Northumbria and she had agreed to his notions of spending days lying on the grasses of Warwick. Chuck scanned the ruckus crowd of soldiers, who cheered and celebrated, drank ale until the liquid dribbled down their chins and stained their clothing. The men were grateful for the prospect that there would be no battle on foot, for arm to arm combat is where most soldiers fell. He searched the crowd for his wife. Chuck pushed through the throng until he saw her.

"Chuck!" she cried for him.

And he strode towards her, his steps becoming faster and faster as he neared her. There was a smile on her face, so large and glowing that it stopped his heart. He had not seen such joy on her for so long.

She laughed, and ran towards him. The few soldiers on her path gave way and soon she was in his arms.

"Blair," he said. "I was wondering where you were."

"With the queen," she answered breathlessly. "I was with the queen, Chuck. She has asked me to be one of her ladies." He felt her belly, distended only slightly, against his stomach. Her arms embraced him tight to her body. "She has asked that I stay, Chuck."

Fear came unbidden, gnawing at his gut.

Slowly, he lowered her to the ground and pulled away. He met her eyes and even before he asked he knew her answer. "What did you say?"

"That this is what my dreams have been made of for too long," she said. "It is my rightful place."

The breath left his body. Chuck closed his eyes and she dove back into his arms, murmured her happiness. He rested his chin on the top of her head. When he opened his eyes, his gaze was drawn to the glinting vision reflecting the sunlight. The queen, in her silver breastplate and shimmering white gown, watched their embrace from her perch. Elizabeth nodded, yet Chuck could not bring himself to bow his head in deference.

This was what Blair wanted for herself, for which he could not bring himself to despise the queen.

"Are you quite proud, my lord?" the words bubbled up from her.

Months later, when he was quite certain she was completely his and with his seed already taken root in her belly, and still she had him wrapped around her little fingers. He was as enslaved to her as the day she asked him to be her teacher.

"Always," he replied.

tbc


	25. Part 24

**Part 24**

Love stories such as theirs—why, they would never be forgotten.

Since the grand triumph of the army, the earl of Leicester who had been gone years from the queen's life it seemed, dined with Elizabeth each day. When he came to the queen's privy chambers, Blair learned to take him to the queen immediately. The guards who had been used to Essex's presence the past months slowly grew used and familiar once again to Robert Dudley. Elizabeth's face returned to how it was as a young woman, and Blair could imagine this plain and simple beauty as she bloomed like a flower under her childhood friend's careful eyes.

"It is a grand love," the ladies whispered behind their fans.

Leicester was an old man, not half as virile as Essex. Yet in his presence, Essex to the queen was but a shadow. It seemed even the creases on his face, the lines at the corners of his lips and eyes, were a map of all the stories he and the queen knew and everyone around them did not.

"Is it a grand love," she asked, "when she did not marry him?"

Blair had married Chuck, and Chuck had married her. She had sailed away on Walsingham's mission for her love of him, for the pain he wrought. And he had sailed across the Channel to be with her.

"He married another woman," Blair reasoned. Surely that meant Leicester and the queen were not as devoted to the other as she was the Chuck and he to her. She could imagine lying with no other man than her husband. "That is not love."

But they were such tender touches the queen gave Robert Dudley, such gentle words.

"There were few moments sparse within these decades past, but they were moments I shall remember until I die," the queen confessed to her softly when Leicester left for the night. And the look in her majesty's eyes told her that perhaps marriage was not the end or the beginning of a love affair. "There are many of those who wed each other who cannot contend with the love I have for Robert."

When she told her husband of this odd love, she asked, "Is it love, Chuck, when they can bear years without?" He met her gaze sadly. "I cannot bear a day without you," she said.

"They cannot be together," he answered. "Whereas you and I can run away as soon as you say."

They were little reminders that sounded like little accusations. "The queen—"

"With the reminder of her childhood love, I wager she would happily send you home to care for a babe."

There were few months to cherish, and she would remember every day she served the queen. Once the child was large enough in her belly that she was heavy and distended, the queen would ask her to leave the service. It had happened before with all the queen's favorite ladies. Elizabeth especially abhorred the sight of a child-bearing lady when she carried the babe of one of her courtiers.

"Tell her naught," she had pleaded with her husband.

And the simple request had imploded into their first bitter argument since Spain. He had taken her words, twisted it so even to her own ears she was such an uncaring mother.

"Naught? I shall not hide away my babe like a bastard whelp," he hissed.

It had been the first that he were truly angered by her, and she feared him, feared what he would do, if he should leave. "I ask for two moons, perhaps one," she argued. "Soon even my finest gowns can not hide the babe. Give me these two moons to be the queen's lady and we shall retire to your dank and ancient castle!"

She knew the words would hurt, but he had hurt her first with his accusing tone. But they had dreamed abed of a life in Warwick, and he had built up the fantasy of Kenilworth castle and its moats, had funneled gold into its restoration so it would be habitable once again by the countess of Warwick and their coming child.

He turned away from her, to look out the window of the chambers they now shared. But it was she who had spat out with intentional hurt, so she lowered her voice and said softly, "Chuck—"

"Perhaps," he said, his voice cool and hard as flint, "I should oversee the preparations in Kenilworth. I would not wish you to arrive to a pathetic excuse of a castle when it is the pomp of the courts you truly adore."

Her heart sank at the prospect. Incarceration in London, Isabella and Philip in Spain, and an attempted abortion in France did not drive a wedge between them. Yet now he chose to abandon her at court after their own heated outburst.

"I wish you would not," she said.

Eric took them a platter of meats and pastries in their chambers, and Dorota came to help Blair out of the gown that hid her child from the queen. When Dorota walked in with her nightgown, Blair waited in front of the mirror, her head inclined. She studied herself in her shift and was entranced by the swell of her belly. She placed a hand over the curve of her abdomen and silently greeted the child within.

Behind her, he stopped and held out the nightgown that Dorota had brought. They were alone now, and Blair raised her arms as he worked to lace the gown to cover her from the cool air. She lay abed and he had left the platter of food in his place. Blair followed his form as he left their chambers without a goodbye.

She imagined his arms around her in the night, yet come morning she woke alone. Her arm reached for his side of the bed and she found it warm and rumpled, and comforted herself in the knowledge that he had slept beside her.

She fought tears throughout the day. She imagined her bed cooling, and the large bedchambers so lonely if he truly left her for Warwick. But she had lashed at Kenilworth and lashed at their dreams, and deserved to be abandoned for it.

Leicester arrived by the end of the day, and the old man looked to her to be in pain. Blair rushed to his side and he, like the old knight he was, strode like he was unaffected. Halfway across he clutched at Blair arm, and the weight of him dragged her down. She was unprepared for the collapse, and Blair found herself falling to her knees right by Leicester's side. She called to another one of the queen's ladies for help.

Blair watched, from the other side of the curtains, when Leicester took her majesty's hand and kissed the back of it. They were silhouettes, both of them. From the other side she and the rest of the ladies saw Elizabeth rise from her gilded chair and throw her arms around the old lord.

"He has been sent to Buxton to heal," said one of the ladies.

"Look," another whispered.

The shadowed figures drew together, their mouths locked in an intimate kiss. Blair gasped, then turned her back on the two. She waved a hand to instruct the rest of the ladies to do the same. When finally, the earl of Leicester hobbled out of the queen's chambers to be assisted by his squire, Blair turned around and caught, from the swaying edges of the curtain, the face of the queen.

She would have the same desolation that night. She reluctantly returned to her chambers and opened the door to the dark emptiness. Blair lit a candle for what little light it could provide. She looked up at her sad reflection in the mirror and her hands rose to undo the laces of her gown.

He came to her from behind. When his face appeared over her shoulder she sobbed in surprise. He kissed the crook of her neck. She whirled in his arms and threw her arms around his neck, tightly, her fingers grasping the back of his shirt. He chuckled gently, but she shook her head against the laughter. "I thought you had gone," she sniffled. Her arms tightened even more as she pushed her body against his. "I love you, and I thought you had gone. I'm so sorry."

She grasped his cheeks and pulled his face down so she could kiss him. He met the kiss with an avid response. Chuck undid the laces of her gown so it would fall to their feet. With warm hands he massaged her breasts, and his hot tongue laved at them until her eyes rolled back with pleasure and she stumbled backwards until she hit the wall.

"Chuck," she breathed.

"You say you cannot bear to be without me. And you well know I cannot bear to be apart."

She felt the tears come when he knelt before her and kissed a trail down the tight skin of her stretched belly. Blair rested her hands on his shoulders and watched as he tenderly kissed the expanse of her stomach, lavishing attention on the babe she had chosen to hide. When his tongue dipped into her navel, her hand flew up to her own hair and pulled, her teeth bit hard onto her lower lip in an effort to contain her reaction.

"You know it," he said gruffly. "And I fear you push me around this little board that you know I am under your command."

She moaned, loud, pained and pleasured.

He looked up at her, breathing harshly, and she realized how much this took when he was straining in his pants. "Let yourself go," he said. "There is no need to hide from me."

She was captivated by his eyes, and followed blindly when he grasped her calf and raised her leg. Her thigh rested over his shoulder as he held his gaze. Without breaking the hold of his eyes, Blair watched as his mouth neared the opening between her thighs. A soft cry erupted from her mouth. Both of her hands dove into his hair as his lips worked on her, licking, probing, kissing, parting her for his tongue.

And she exploded, her chest violently rising and falling to catch her breath. Her knees weakened and she slowly slid down the wall. Her legs trembled still. Chuck rose, and Blair stared at his lips glistened with her. His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and she felt the wetness on her warm and stir like a honey pot. Impulsively she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, tasted herself and was thrilled of it.

"I want you," she gasped.

He had not come inside of her, not plunged into her core, since the incident with Jenny that she had chosen not to discuss again. She had been torn, but she had healed and the child moved as quickly and vigorously as she thought any healthy child did. He had not come inside her and drenched her for so long and her womb was parched of his seed.

"I want you inside of me."

She was certain to his uncertainty, so she pulled the belted waist of his pants and slid a hand inside. She reached for his, brushed against the head of his manhood and grabbed the sac in her hand. She massaged his balls and she felt him lengthening into a stiff rod against her arm.

"Make love to me," she pleaded again. Her other hand fumbled until she freed him. His trousers fell to the floor and when she freed him he was erect and straining. She pressed up against him and felt him against her stomach as she kissed his lips. She missed this. She missed this hardness, the near violence that intricately wrapped with tenderness when they were joined together. "Please."

She was throbbing, pouring, half-insane with her need that she thrashed on the bed when he raised her hips and buried his length inside her. When he slid into her she closed her eyes against the unbearable joy of it. She clutched her breasts as he rode her, and she raised and lowered herself in his rhythm. He came and spent himself, and her muscles clamped down and drained him.

"I love you," she sobbed, and Chuck collapsed on top of her and kissed the hollow of her throat. "Don't leave," she whispered as she fought to catch her breath. They were sticky together, and she savored the delicious way her skin stuck to his, the wonderful pressure of his weight on her.

She moved off her to release the weight on her stomach, but she clutch tightly to him, hooked her ankles to him and tightened her thighs around his hips. He sighed at his newfound realization, then held on to her as he rolled on his back so she would be the one sprawled over him. She showered kisses on his collarbone.

"I despise your decisions, and think it ridiculous that you should choose to remain in the queen's service when you are with child," he told her truthfully. She raised herself up on her elbows and looked down at him. Fear had a way of making her large, lucid eyes shine. She looked so very vulnerable to him, despite the way she had him completely in the palm of her hand. So he released the tension within her by assuring her—even the very thought of it killed him, "I still am here. As I shall be tomorrow."

She broke into a wondrous smile, and laid her sweaty, matted, beautiful head on his chest. She kissed through the patch of hair and found his moist skin.

"Oft I am afraid my love for you shall be our death. I make decisions so very unwise to make you happy," he told her.

When they slept, she was wrapped around him, limp and sated, her limbs tangled with his. "So I would know if you were to rise and leave me," she said lightly to him, but Chuck knew in his heart the fear remained.

Tendrils of light peeked into their chambers when he woke, and he found her raised upon one elbow staring at him as he slept. Her fingers drew titillating lines on his cheek, down his jaw. When she saw him wake, her lips curved and she lowered her lips to taste his.

"I am so very in love with you," she said to him.

In the privacy of their chambers, he cherished the words. He buried his fingers into her hair and said, "As am I."

She shook her head, and the tips of her hair brushed against his chest. "I love you. I love you more than I love Elizabeth, more than I love England," she confessed. "I love you more than my mother, or my father, or my child," she said, her voice in a whisper, as if the admission was such sin. Having never held the child, it was too easy. When the child came, it would all change, but he knew what it was she needed to say. "I would that you know I love you. How very awful I have been."

He caught a teardrop with his thumb. The lump in his throat was hard and large. "When I met you, your one desire was a place with the queen. I swore I would not change you."

She drew close to him, and laid her head upon his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and idly ran a hand up and down her upper arm. She said to him, "Tell me you know I love you."

"You confessed to a crime to save my arse," he said fondly. "I know."

"How is it so difficult, my lord, to push away these childhood dreams for a new one?"

But he knew not, so he held her until morning time that she needed to be present in the chambers of the queen. One day, one night, she would know, he hoped, which dream to next pursue. As long as it did not take her away from him, he would survive.

~o~o~o~

With Leicester having left for the healing waters of Buxton, Essex's star slowly began to rise again. Blair looked up one morning to see Essex on his way out of the queen's private chambers. The ladies around her giggled at the sight of the handsome Master of the Horse. Essex nodded towards her, then approached her.

"Lady Warwick," he said, warming her heart at the title that labeled her as Chuck's countess.

"Robert," she said with familiarity.

He broke into a grin, the use of his name enough welcome for him. "Not a long while ago I found a blushing little girl, completely green and unadulterated by the impurities of this court. And now you are the countess of Warwick."

It had always been an easy banter with Essex, even when she plotted to seduce him into campaigning for a post for her. "Do you dare claim, Robert, that being Chuck Bass' wife has rendered me impure?" she teased.

"You are, madame, certainly not a green, blushing girl." He bent at the waist and kissed the back of her hand.

Blair's smile grew. As Essex neared, she leaned and confided softly, "I am full with Chuck's babe."

His gaze drew up in surprise. "For truth?" She nodded. "Bass must be elated." And then, he frowned. "How is it that still you remain in court? I would suppose he would have carted your fine behind to Warwick, to hold your own little court in a kingdom of your own."

Blair rose, then said, "Walk with me, Lord Essex."

They eased back to the familiar companionship of two people who knew more about each other than many others in the court. "You have become so much more, in these last months," he said to her.

"Because I am a countess?" she asked.

"Because now you are not so hungry that you are careless," he told her.

"Was I careless, Robert? Truly?"

With a slight smile, he said, "I could see you thrum in hunger, when you first arrived. You were quite a handful." He chuckled. "You wished to pursue me."

She flushed. "You knew?"

"I am no green lad. And Chuck Bass is in the council. I sensed his ire." He shook his head. "You were a handful. I would never have handled you. Now you have calm. Perhaps because you have it all today."

Perhaps because she had Chuck Bass.

"And what of you? Do you have it all?" she asked him.

"Your husband knows," he answered. "I want more. I desire to be more, to have more. I am capable of more."

The tables had turned. When once he had been the favorite, and she had sought his power to become a lady-in-waiting, it was Essex who was restless now. She was in favor with the queen, and he was the one unsatisfied. "Be careful, my lord, lest you find yourself with more and more, then more than you can bear."

"The same way you knew you were not some little bride to be married off to the likes of that fiancé you took to court, and knew you were born to sit by Elizabeth." Essex declared quietly, "I am more than this courtier, more than a play thing, more than the queen's dog that Dudley is," he said, referring to his stepfather who had only just left the court and Elizabeth for the pains in his stomach. "Look at him, grown old and gray and ill and still nowhere close to the throne."

They returned to the hall, and Blair saw her husband standing with Cecil, in deep discussion of what seemed such grave a subject. She went over to him and placed a hand on his arm. "Chuck, is aught the matter?"

Chuck let out a deep breath, then pulled her to his arms. "News has reached the court, Blair, that the earl of Leicester is passed."

Blair covered her mouth, then thought back to the tender, bittersweet last farewell that she had seen past the queen's curtains. She turned from him and rushed to the queen's privy chambers. She saw one of the queen's ladies rush out pale and trembling. The woman shook her head.

"She is inconsolable."

Blair carefully tread her way into the chambers and saw the queen sitting in her chair, staring out her window. Spilled food and wine was on the floor. Blair walked around it, careful of slipping. A folded letter was in the queen's hands, on her lap, over the heavy, jeweled gown. She blinked away her tears, because Essex or not, she had seen the queen with Leicester and knew if she herself had lost Chuck Bass she would be worse off than her monarch.

"Your majesty—"

Elizabeth's eyes flickered to her. Blair approached slowly. "I have no wish to speak," Elizabeth said wearily.

"Then we shall not speak," Blair agreed. She sank on the seat opposite Elizabeth's. "Perhaps you could use company."

"Children—every one of you," the queen spat. "You have no knowledge of my pain."

"I could not presume, your majesty, that I understand your pain. But I would not wish this upon myself."

Elizabeth was satisfied. She closed her eyes and rested back her head on the back of the chair. Blair leaned back in her seat as well, and rested her hands on her belly.

The moment of quietness lulled her as she looked out the window.

"We were very young when we were imprisoned both in the Tower," the queen said. "Before even then I held him close to my heart." Blair looked back at the queen who was lost in her memories of a younger self. "I wished to marry him. If not for this throne, I would have married my Dudley."

This was not her queen in Tilbury, not the queen who declared her heart as strong as that of a Prince. This was young Elizabeth. This was Elizabeth in love.

"You had it right, Lady Blair," the queen allowed. "You married your love and cursed my name."

Blair protested quietly, "I did not curse your name."

"You should have!" Elizabeth burst out. "You married your Chuck Bass. To hell with the throne. It would not keep you warm at night, or be your companion in your old age." She sighed. The queen turned to her, and unconsciously her hands warmed her belly. "Lady Blair," Elizabeth said calmly, "you are breeding."

Blair gasped, then fisted her hand to her side. "Your majesty—"

"You are." Blair nodded. The queen waved her over with her hand. At the royal command, Blair rose and made her way towards the queen. She held her breath when Elizabeth touched her abdomen over her gown. "Why do you remain in court, Lady Blair? Most of my ladies retire to their lands when they breed."

"Why do I stay?" Blair repeated softly. "Because, majesty, here you are."

Elizabeth scoffed. She took her hand off Blair's stomach. She cupped her face and said, "The days in the world are so fleeting, gone too soon, done before we begin."

She had never been terrified than she had been at the thought of Chuck on the executioner's block. How easily it could have been, how easily the end.

Elizabeth placed the letter in Blair's hands. "Guard it well," she whispered. "This is my heart."

The last letter from the earl of Leicester, and it fractured her heart. He was a childhood sweetheart, married twice to women who were not Elizabeth when it was the queen that held his heart.

"I would not have done it differently," the queen said. "But I will regret it for the time I should have spent with him and not the throne."

Blair walked to the small coffer beside the queen's bed. "The place for this is by you, always."

"I have lost a man, but I am married to England. I will survive it all."

Blair asks, "So you can live without a man."

"I can. Because I have done it. But you—you are a young soul yet."

"You loved him."

"I love my kingdom more." Elizabeth dabbed at the tears in her eyes. "This is but a broken heart that shall heal."

"You are the strongest woman I know. Your majesty, tell me, while you and I are alone, when the weight of the crown is not upon your head and the council is away at their beds—" Blair reached for the queen's hand, "—do you truly regret none of what has come to pass?"

She chuckled, and it was such sad laughter. "My Robert married another, twice, yet he never broke my heart as much as the day he died."

As much as Blair adored the queen, this could not be her. This aging woman, in whose womb there never thrived a life, who was anguished for the loss of the man he loved and could not call her husband. If the queen loved Dudley like she loved her husband, this cannot be her. She would never be a broken woman for loving or losing.

Blair wept when she kissed her queen's hand. "I love you," Blair declared. And yet she could not claim she loved the queen more than any other, because she could not lie.

Elizabeth patted her cheek, in silent blessing. The queen asked, "Will he establish your household in Kenilworth?"

"That was his promise to me." And Chuck kept his promises.

"It is a castle of many stories, child," the queen recalled.

"So I have heard," Blair answered. "We shall fill it with our own." And even then she was surprised at what she now slowly found her strength to do. "I am walking away from all of my dreams."

The queen's gaze dropped to the slight swell of her belly which she still was able to hide. "Not all."

Blair remembered her dreams of her family, and they mitigated much of the dreams she now walked away from. She agreed, "Not all."

She drew the curtains shut when the queen asked. She left the chambers dark and cold, without a fire to keep Elizabeth warm. Blair left the queen's chambers in desolate coldness and made her way outside where her husband waited. She went to him, pressed herself against him. His thumbs traced her cheekbones.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"My heart bleeds," she answered.

Chuck pulled her close and tucked her hair behind her ears. She shared, "Leicester has died. She loved him for decades. And Leicester has perished; his last letter sits in a chest beside her head."

It seemed, in moments such as these, that all desires in this court had no destination.

"Decades, Chuck, and she never once could call him her own."

"And yet he was. From the days when they were young, never carefree, he was Gloriana's."

"This was my dream. I'm afraid to let it slip away," she began. "But I do not wish to wake one day and realize I am old and I had only spent a few wonderful moments with you."

She looked down as his hand wrapped around hers. His voice was hoarse when he said urgently, "Say the word and we will be gone from here."

"Then let us be gone."

And the look of surprise and wonder in his face was enough to make her lifetime.

He took her hand firmly in his grasp. Chuck wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and drew her up against him as they walked towards the doors. Blair's lips parted when she saw the fitted carriage he had leant to her once, and noticed the chests and baggage loaded. Dorota joined her in her smart traveling cloak while Eric handed Chuck a small bag.

She looked at Chuck. "You know me so well, my lord, to have them prepare for the journey before I answered."

He grinned, in triumph, in determination. "I cannot change you. But would you have hated me if I told you that whether or not you wished to go, I would have found a way to convince you to visit Warwick, my love? And once you made it there you would have stayed, because you would fall in love with it."

With one last look towards the court she would now abandon, Blair took a deep breath. "I would stay, even if it were a dilapidated hut along the Thames, not as much because I would fall in love with Warwick, Chuck. I would stay because I love you," she answered.

**Epilogue**

The letter was brief, to the point. It was written in Cecil's hand, steady and precise as he related the events that had transpired in Ireland and in London. It was out of respect that Cecil had written, of courtesy to a member of the Council. Yet still there were faint traces of generous neutrality in the choice of his words that spoke of his understanding that Lord Bass' wife would read it, and to the two of them the subject was more than just a traitor to the crown.

Blair folded the letter carefully and handed it to Chuck. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed the nape of her neck. They stood, upon the hillock in Warwick where they had full view of the expanse of land. To the left she saw the fields where the cattle grazed, the very pasture lands that the queen had granted her as reward for her father's service.

It was a rich land, but it was not enough to cause them strife. How very young they had been.

On the other side, coming from the castle, their son was more than a little prince. He ran across the field while Bartholomew held his hand and endeavored at his age to run as fast.

"Your father will be beaten by a little boy." Blair scoffed. "He used to race me upon my horse and would not grant me single win."

"Your son brings the duke to his knees within moments, the way he had since the day he was born."

In truth the bloody wriggling mess that was the future earl of Warwick had hollered his birth to the world so loudly that Bartholomew had burst into the birthing chambers and despite the carnage of the Netherlands, the sight of the birthing fluids that dripped and ran with blood had caused Chuck's father to shame himself on his hands and knees.

His hand rested on her hip, and spoke about what she had deflected. Quietly he inquired, "Do you wish to go?"

"No," she answered quickly.

Essex's rebellion had exploded before their shocked eyes. He had been granted his mission to Ireland, and for a while it seemed he would finally prove his worth—be more as he wanted. Ambition and power, a step closer to the crown. She had been delighted when Essex had been given the opportunity, and appalled at how Essex turned his back to the queen. Not once had she thought this would be the road that he would take.

"He was my friend," she said. "I do not wish to see his death."

She could imagine it clearly in her mind. The Tower Green, upon that block by the gardens where she had walked past with Chuck on the way to their wedding. Robert Deveraux would take his last rites in the chapel where she had taken her marriage sacrament, then be forced to his knees behind the block.

More and more until he had more than he could bear, she had warned him.

She hoped it would be a swift, clean kill.

Her breath still trembled at the horrific images her mind conjured. She had been so afraid once to see Chuck's execution upon that block. Even now, far away from the Tower, the fear was very real. Behind her son and his grandfather, another figure, wallowing in her gown as she trudged under the sun, waved towards her.

"I shall ask mother to stay with us longer," she said to her husband.

Where there was death, there was life. Eleanor had not been with her for the birth of her son, but Elizabeth had granted her return and allowed Eleanor some peace in Warwick. Granted, of course, that Eleanor not darken the doors of the court. And Eleanor had no desire to see the queen. Blair was grateful, for she would need her mother the next months as she grew.

She had been on a path as reckless once, and she pitied Essex that he did not have some soul to love the way she loved Chuck. How easily it could have been her. Her desires rivaled his once upon a time. It was this love, this husband, this family she had that gave her the strength to pull away.

She turned to take Chuck's hands in hers and raised them to her lips. "You have fulfilled all my dreams, Chuck. This—this is far better than a lifetime in court." His lips curved in pleasure, unsurprised, always completely confident that he gave her everything she never knew she wanted. She said to him, "I am with child again."

His smile grew, and she remembered once more that standing in front of her was her teacher.

Her lord. "I know," he whispered, cupping her belly with her hands. Her husband. "Thank you."

The love of her entire life.

fin

AN: Is there even a message I can leave now? This was, as always, a pleasure.


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